


Brockton's Grand Grimoire

by shallow_yet_deep



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28941270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallow_yet_deep/pseuds/shallow_yet_deep
Summary: A young woman experiences one of the worst days of her life and snaps, but instead of any shard giving her power, an unknown being does instead, promising her great reward in return of entertainment.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	1. Introduction / The Rules

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Brockton's Celestial Forge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23949661) by [Lord Roustabout (Lord_Roustabout)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lord_Roustabout/pseuds/Lord%20Roustabout). 



Hey!  
Welcome to Brockton’s Grand Grimoire. You are likely familiar with the masterpiece that is Brockton Celestial Forge, which is my main inspiration. The Celestial forge is about being able to craft anything. The Grand Grimoire is my own custom perklist mostly about being able to do anything, specifically through magic, and a small amount of Magitech.  
I’ll admit I’ve included some items and/or perks that don’t entirely fit that goal, and I would need to purge them before ever feeling comfortable releasing this perk list, not that I necessarily will, seeing as a magic perklist is already in the works.  
A couple things to go over:  
Interjects (like addendums/preambles, but they tend to go into random places in the chapter) and Interludes count for CP cost.  
As you might know, many jumps have free perks, and whenever they do a mostly similar function, I throw them all together into a package if you will, this is mostly just within a single franchise, such as all the free perks in the Fate/Legends jumps, but not necessarily. This can get OP to be frank.  
Some Perks are also held in packages that are purchased gradually, Maria, the main character, must complete a package before she can roll freely again.  
Also with packages, some of them might be from a certain perkline in a jump, if the origin costs CP(0CP not counting, I don’t want to cheese this too much), I will include it to cheapen the price of the rest.  
I’ll also warn you I am no Lord Roustabout, and this is mostly just to practice writing, and since I don’t feel like writing this for the next 3 years of my life, it’s 200CP/1k, instead of 100CP/2k, and every hundred rolls (like 13 chapters) she’ll get an extra 100 added, so she starts 200, then she’ll get 300, then 400, 500, etc.  
Those are the rules of the grimoire.  
I’m also way too busy to delve deep into the verses from which perks come from, so cursory research at most, and I’ll 100% fuck up some details. Sue Me! (this is simply an expression; legal action against me is not desired)  
Enjoy!


	2. 1- Abscondence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maria gets some addmitidley life-altering perks and overreacts, and I butcher the Fate magic system :)

I sighed, trying to breathe focus into my body. After two days of freaking out, I had begun to tap into the network of pigeons around me, seeing through their eyes and driving them around while in a trance-like state. Much easier to control them when I wasn’t focusing on my own senses. I had a hard time not jumping into it every once in a while, but that wasn’t the best thing to be doing while driving. Pigeon-control wasn’t really that useful a power, and while I knew that I had potential to grow, I wasn’t about to go to the PRT and declare myself a cape, especially considering my small range, barely half a mile. I was also good at blending in, especially with high society, although the image of “high society” I got was less parties in hotel ballrooms and more ancient Ethiopian courts. I was also great at political thinking, but I was ignoring that at the moment.

I hopped out of the truck, grabbed my last box of the batch, and headed into the library. I placed the box on the reception desk, pulling out the electronic signature thing I had been issued, and placing it in front of Mrs. Armstrong, the librarian currently there.

“Maria! Thanks for bringing these!” her wrinkled face became 60% smile, and she signed the thing “Surprised they got here so early.”

“Well you know the Hermes motto, _As Fast As Gods_.”

She seemed to smile even wider “Perhaps even faster!”

I snorted “Heh, yeah, well I have to run now, corporate doesn’t like us hanging around too long.”

“I heard they time the deliveries, no?”

“No, not quite that bad, but the pay is pretty bad, and they have these “delivery bonuses” for every package you deliver, so you really have to deliver a lot to get any reasonable money, at least for us full-timers.”

“It’s a terrible thing, and I really can’t do much, Mayor signed a contract with them, so all the uh… public… whatever, city-owned things gotta use them.”

“Yeah, it sure sucks. Anyways gotta go.” I turned around and began running out, barely hearing a “Enjoy your day dear!” so I threw up a thumbs up in return.

I hopped back in the truck and drove back to the warehouse, looking at the eyesore that was the offices above, elegant modern buildings contrasting harshly against the cold brutalist warehouse, looking like they were just glued on with PVA. Despite looking like they would slide off and crash in a strong breeze, it was somehow up to code. As I drove into my parking space, a group of loaders started loading. Ted, my manager who I had just noticed was standing with them, approached the window.

“Hey, Fugly Bob’s ordered a bunch a’ shit, not enough for a ‘teen-wheeler, so these are all going there.”

“Do they count as one delivery?”

Ted looked to the side “Yeah… It’s policy, can’t do anything.”

“Course. You can’t call this MRT?” Manager Requested Time had a slight pay-bump, which I could seriously use since I was gonna waste a lot of time delivering this.

“No can do… Hands are really tied.”

“..Right, I’ll go now.” As I pulled out and started driving up to the Market, I sighed. Ted loved to do that Friendly Manager Schtick, your boss, but also your friend! Sure they might nag you all the time, but they aren’t the bad guy, they just have Contractual Obligations. I didn’t chat with other people on the team often, didn’t have much time, and he didn’t nag me TOO often, but I knew a micromanager when I saw one. He also had a tendency to call people for MRT, usually when many shipments had to go(as technically intended for MRT), and then screwing them over by denying it. “Bosses woulda had my neck if I called too many people in, just trying to live, you know?” Actually, thinking about it now, “you know?” was like his catchphrase. He really tried to be relatable.

I sighed as I stepped on the gas, tapping occasionally into the eyes of pigeons around me, watching the streets. I considered what Mrs. Armstrong said, elections weren’t close, but they weren’t even a year away. Should I, or even could I, run for mayor? It would be a great way to try to improve things, and saying I was good at realpolitik was an understatement. I’d need to do some research, and it would probably be an investment to start a campaign, but it would be interesting. The slithering presence in my head seemed to speed up at the idea, radiating amusement, after all, it enjoyed ‘interesting’, the more interesting it found me the stronger I would grow, that’s what it had told me on Monday night, when my world was all coming undone.

-<O>\- -<O>-

I sighed as I collapsed onto the couch. 14-hour-shifts shouldn’t be legal… I giggled, that was a terrible policy position, and I was doing those hours of my own volition. I fished my phone out of my pocket and sent “not showin up 2morrow” to Ted. I had to do a bunch of digging. Kaito hopped up the stairs “We closed for the night…” I got up and nodded, and the 17-year-old boy hopped back down. I had been living with the Eguchis for a while now. I helped them keep their business afloat, they let me live in their spare room, although initially it was more “you can live here while you sort yourself out”, it had become much more mutually supportive. I reached the bottom of the stairs, entering that area between the bar and kitchen, a hallway looping to the back, to where the side-entrance & Garage Door was. The Eguchis ran the Daydream, a dingy little café/diner/bar placed just before the docks-south turned into downtown. Apparently, Tamir had inherited the building around 2002. As I approached the bar, Inko, Kaito’s mom, a tall Japanese woman with wisps of gray hair, handed me a shot of some red-ish cocktail. I gave it a sip and nearly coughed as the flavor exploded in my mouth, a complex of strawberry, citrus, with a hint of something… Cinamon? It sounded like it might work on paper, and in execution, it was even greater.

At that moment, I seemed to retreat from reality, I flew away and I was in a sea of stars, as if I had just dove in. By Instinct perhaps, I began swimming deeper reaching for a group of stars. It was where I had picked up my current power, and I felt some sort of connection between them. So I swam for it. Just as the pressure was beginning to become too much, my hand made contact with a single star.

 **300CP Banked. Purc** **hase?: Noble Menagerie (Fate/Stay Night) (200CP). Purchased. 100CP Banked.**

I was suddenly made aware of 72 enhanced pigeons on the roof, created specifically to be perfect servants for me. The connection between us would only dissipate after 100 miles. I had to focus a bit less on using them since they were much more intelligent than their kin. I would have to test them out later, but for now, I could drink.

Inko giggled as my facial expressions shifted rapidly in response.

I powered through my racing mind to remember what I was planning on saying initially “I need to stop forgetting how flavorful your drinks are…”

“I don’t make bland drinks.”

Tamir, Kaito’s dad, a middle-aged, heavier black man chuckled “They’re certainly all vibrant.”

Inko quickly elbowed him in the ribs. Was that some sort of innuendo? They tended to have weird moments like these, usually relating to Tamir’s grilling or Inko’s drinks. I had asked Kaito once, and the 16-year-old didn’t get it either.

We kept drinking and chatting about all sorts of stuff, the state of the business, the state of the city, how the day was, and then finally we delved a bit into local politics. I simply had to mention that I was considering running for mayor.

Tamir almost choked on his Japanese Barbeque (Inko had told me the name multiple times, but I had a hard time remembering it) “Seriously?”

“I’m probably not gonna win, but I’m thinking I might reach for like 5% of the vote, spend the next two years organizing, getting goodwill among the community, and then manage to leverage some policy with a ~15% I could hand over to the person closest to the top.”

Inko tilted her head slightly “What kind of policy though?”

“Probably gonna have to come up with a plan to fix up the city, so I’m gonna do a bunch of research tomorrow.”

Tamir quickly grabbed another bottle and began pouring everyone another glass “This calls for a celebration!”

“It really does-”

Inko punched me lightly on the shoulder “It really does!”

It took me a second the catch up “Tamir, you’re just looking for an excuse to drink more aren’t you?”

He giggled, not a chuckle, but a giggle “Nothing better than Eguchi wine! A toast to your luck!”

I woke up around 9. An hour late to work… Fuck… Trying to ignore the vertigo caused by the heavy hangover, I grabbed a pair of jeans and started dragging them up. It was about then, the fact I was taking a day off wormed its way in through the headache. I sighed, finished getting barely dressed, and stumbled to the bathroom.

It was a rare occurrence that we drunk that much, let alone me. I knew that while there was a level of celebration and wishing of luck, we had all had a long two weeks, and Inko’s drinks always made people feel better. I had probably stressed them out after locking myself in the room for 2 days… I’d need to apologize for that. I stepped back into my room and changed into a more professional looking outfit, mostly consisting of a dress and a jacket.

It was about noon when I hopped into my father’s old white van and began driving to the library.

I was pouring over information, including a study recently published, apparently conducted at the behest of the Grove Campaign, pricing the cleaning of the graveyard at ~$23,000,000, and the refurbishment at a whopping ~$40,000,000. I was combing through and could find no obvious error. It probably also didn’t help that while I wasn’t bad with quick mental math, I was clueless about statistics and construction.

Grove’s plan or the city was to buy & demolish all the abandoned property and pay for it by making it public housing, or rather publicly-owned housing, you’d pay your (relatively) low rent to the city. Not a bad plan really, if you wanted to ignore the homeless population you would throw onto the streets, ripe for the picking by the closest charismatic leader promising a path forward in life.

I pushed away the returning memories and continued writing notes and calculations, trying to come up with a good economic plan.

I then started researching New Hampshire’s laws regarding mayoral campaigns. I now had a rough idea of the money required to set everything up, but I discovered one massive issue. New Hampshire, like many other states, had outlawed capes (and/or potential capes) in public office, requiring power-screening for all candidates. Fuck. The Slitherer leaked amusement into my mind, I guessed it found my failure enjoying. At least that was one of us. It then suddenly became frustrated, was it because I didn’t find the humor in my best chance in fixing the city sinking? I mentally rolled my eyes at the presence.

I got back into the old van and drove back home. I rolled into the garage, and headed upstairs, hearing the buzz of the evening rush. Getting a faint whiff of cooking meat, and a stronger hint of alcohol.

As I collapsed onto my bed, I seemed to fall away from reality as well… I knew the sensation. I dove back into the sea of stars and followed the connection to that same cluster of stars automatically, like some unknown force was pulling me along. A couple stars barely within my reach, and as I neared one I realized it was surrounded by more tiny stars. I managed to scoop them all out as the pressure built up and propelled me back into my body.

**300CP Banked. Purchase?: Master Of Puppets (Fate/Legends: Oasis of Fantasy) (200CP), Magic Circuits (Fate/Stay Night) (0CP), Magic Circuits (Fate/Zero) (0CP), Magic Circuits (Fate/Kaleid Illya Prisma) (0CP), Blossoming Sun (Fate/Legends: Land Of The Rising Sun) (0CP), Roman Holiday (Fate/Legends: Empires Of Antiquity) (0CP), A Different Age (Fate/Legends: Garden of Avalon) (0CP), Green Life (Fate/Legends: Land of Shadows) (0CP), Hindu Boys (Fate/Legends: Nirvana Yuga) (0CP), An Age of Gods (Fate/Legends: Oasis of Fantasy) (0CP), I Come From France (Fate/Legends: Vive la France) (0CP), Basic Training (Fate/Zero) (100CP), Basic Training (Fate/Stay Night) (0CP). Purchased. 0CP Banked.**

I emerged from the vision in a very different body. I began to laugh darkly. I couldn’t be a politician because I would be found a parahuman quickly. Forget quickly now, I would be found instantly. I jumped up, and walked to the mirror in the living room, realizing I had to stoop to see myself properly. I had gone from 5’7” to nearly 7’. My tan skin was more copper-like. My dark brown eyes had become white. In fact, my entire eye was made of smooth marble, but weirdly deep. My flat marble eyes seemed to be gates to the unknown. My fingernails were much like my eyes, polished marble, and yet it looked weirdly deep. My muscles were slightly more prominent, but so were my curves. I was much curvier now. I was by no means flat before, but my chest wasn’t this large before, and neither was my butt.

As I heard someone coming up the stairs, I quickly rushed back into my room and locked it. What the hell could I even do?

My newfound knowledge of magecraft would be no help, but then again with 400 circuits, which I could further enhance by channeling mana from the earth, I could certainly pack a punch. Formalcraft was meaningless here, Gradiation Air & Reinforcement too, and while my Hypnosis, like the rest of my skills, was beyond average(Besides Gradiation Air, I was beyond Masterful with it), I didn’t really want to touch it, and I wasn’t sure how it would work out in the long run.

Most of the stuff in my closet was meaningless to me. I was gonna have to leave, and I didn’t need most of that bulk. I couldn’t show myself in public without a gang trying to recruit me, which fair enough, I was like a mover 3, and maybe a brute 7-8?

How the fuck was I going to live?

I used Gradiation Air to make myself some clothes. Then I made a bunch of bags and started packing up what really mattered, ignoring the clothes. Not only was I a Master of Gradiation Air with a lot of prana to spend, but Gradiation Air was also much easier than it should have been. I supposed that parahuman projections had really helped there, what people saw as possible here was a lot wider than a world with no capes.

Using a pigeon looking into the living room, I spotted an exhausted & bored Kaito heading into his room. The evening rush was probably ending, which meant that in only a couple hours they would close. As soon as Kaito’s door closed, mine opened and I took the bags down easily. I was way too strong. I began shoving the bags into the empty cardboard boxes in my van, with them popping as I let them go. I heard a bell ding, a faint “The kitchen will be closing in 30 minutes.” From the front. I quickly jumped into my van and began driving further into the docks south, stopping far enough from the boardwalk that enforcers wouldn’t be likely to mess with me. Not that that would turn out well for them.

I wrapped myself in a bunch of thin blankets from one of the boxes.

As I sunk into sleep, I flashbacked to two years ago, when I was still homeless, as I was now. I remembered buying the blankets from Ms. Cohen, the market’s Jewish grandma. Everyone respected her, and I had learned why that day. She gave me a bunch of them for free. I tried turning her down, but she was adamant about me taking them. An enforcer nearby laughed at me “Girl when Ms. Cohen offers you a gift you take it. Take the blankets and keep walking.”

I awoke the next day to the sun in my eyes. Unlike last night, my prana was now descending, and based on the rate it would probably get to its bottom point in the late afternoon, seeing as it was 8, based on my alarm ringing. I’d probably have to get new batteries eventually. I drew more mana from the earth, supplementing what I lacked, and recreated my clothes for the day, being a jacket and jeans, with my driving sunglasses, or rather enlarged copies made through trace and Gradiation Air.

It took constant focus to keep them there, but not too much, luckily.

What to do?

As I stared at the morning sky, contemplating what I could do, I found myself absentmindedly driving around. What the fuck was I supposed to do now?

I stopped at a local coffee shop and ordered a Mocha. It was amazing. I then drove over to Fugly’s and got myself a Greasy Quarter, it had been a while and I was in a mood for a heart attack. Although I would honestly kill for some of Tamir's _Robata_ right now. THAT WAS THE NAME!

I started going through all the boxes I hadn’t touched for years, left in the van. I’d likely have to empty my bank account, which would be a bit of a struggle, since emptying bank accounts was super suspicious. At the same time, I’d have to fight the clock against any missing persons report that might be filed. I froze as my phone began to buzz. Inko was calling me. I quickly flipped the phone open and hung up.

I began to realize a bit of an awful truth, I’d have to use Hypnosis if I wanted my money back. I’d have to master someone. The combination of my moderate hypnosis knowledge and mastery of familiars allowed for quite an effect. I just didn’t want to use it.

I began going through the stalls in the market, I first got a jewelers kit, before deciding to purchase materials for creating other familiars. I purchased various metal foils, a bunch of clay, various herbs and extracts, and a coil of thin armature wire. I then headed to the mall, where I purchased a grinder, a portable stove, and a large stainless steel bowl.

**200CP Banked. Purchase?: Basic Training (Fate/Zero) (200CP). Purchased. 0CP Banked.**

One of the stars began growing brighter. Ok then. I was now beyond masterful with Hypnosis and Reinforcement, they were lifted to the level of my Gradiation Air.

Just in time as well.

I grabbed an iron ring with a small inset ruby from the box of jewelry. I stabilized the ring as best as I could on a gradiated stand and began carefully scratching grooves into the ring, before scratching a circle around the ruby and carved three lines going from outside the circle to the edge of the ruby. The scratches slowly but surely deepened, being faint, but still clearly there when looked at a bit more carefully. They weren’t runes or anything, merely preparation for the ritual to imbue them with magic.

Whoever wore this ring would gain a familiar-like connection to me, allowing me to tap into their senses, which were enhanced through reinforcement, and use hypnosis on them continuously.

A ring that would allow me to master people.

Just so I could get my money.

I took a breath. I’d probably need multiple of these rings, so I grabbed another and continued to carve. I was fighting against the clock and I knew it. As the sun began to set, I had 8 master rings.

I placed them in the middle of a circle surrounded by various Formalcraft equipment, funneling power into the rings. I started burning lilies and ironwood scraps, before covering the circle in a glass dome. I watched as the smoke continued rising, as I funneled mana into the ritual. The smoke them began to thicken rapidly, before dripping bronze-like slag onto the rings, which rattled as they drank up each drop that hit them. I poured in more mana and the smoke quickly entirely into bronze slag, and all rings rattled rapidly, creating a popcorn-like sound. It had only taken an hour.

I drove over to the bank, parking a block away, and making a businesswomen outfit for myself, sunglasses still included. I shoved the rings into my right pocket and walked into the Central Bank of Brockton Bay. I walked upstairs, and after a bunch of waiting, I approached a bored secretary.

She perked up a bit, and tried her best Customer Service Voice™️ “Welcome to the Central Bank of Brockton Bay, how can we help?”

I tried to slip into a self-important ‘having to do anything is a waste of my time’ persona “I’ve come to find I am not satisfied with your service, I’d like to cancel my bank account.”

Her face painted the shock she experienced. “Ok then, just a second.” Her hands ran across her desk and flexed a bunch. After five minutes, a tall man with a suit entered. “Hi, I’m Jeff Swoyer, how can I help?”

I once again slipped into that snobbish ‘This is a waste of my time’ persona “I have grown frustrated with your service and would like to cancel my bank account.”

“…Alrighty then, let’s go deal with that.” And he indicated ‘follow me’ as he began walking to his office.

As I sat down he sighed “Could you tell me why you feel our service is frustrating?”

“No, I’d rather be rid of this as quickly as possible.”

“Details please?”

It took a minute for him to pull up my account. “Do you have another bank account already set up? We could do a transfer before shutting it down, it’s the quickest way to deal with the money.”

“I’m doubtful of your service, so I’d rather withdraw it all as cash.”

He tilted his head to the side “You understand why I’m suspicious, right?”

I grabbed his hand and quickly shoved a ring on “No, I really don’t.”

I then learned what it was like to be connected to a mind as vast as yours. It was like two cargo ships suddenly anchored to each other. It took a lot more focus than I expected to get to the captain and command him to act, mostly because the connection was constant, and not fleeting.

I need you to empty the account

He blinked a couple times, then nodded, his piercing blue eyes now more of a turquoise. “Alright, I’ll go deal with that.” He used his printer to print out a sheet of paper, providing the details of the account, while I placed the rings in his pocket.

I watched as he walked down the corridor to what looked like a teller, sliding her a sheet of paper. “Hey Suzie-“

“-Don’t call me that.”

“…Right, sorry Susan, I need to empty this account, all cash.”

Susan gave him a look and reached for the paper. I made him grab her hand and force a ring on.

Empty it out without alerting the system.

She blinked then continued. I watched as she went through a process of placing 8 “order”s, for lack of a better term, in blocks of $25,000, besides the last that was only $21,562.

Was this really happening? Were things really gonna go this easy? I could sort-of understand why a master would use their powers, it was seriously convenient. My conscious then struck me like a hammer, it was still highly immoral to subvert people's agency like this.

Her printer-like device drew out 8 slips of paper, each with a number on it, which she handed to Jeff.

REMEMBER TO TAKE THE RING

Jeff pulled the ring off her as he grabbed them, leaving her blinking rapidly, before walking deeper into the office area. Jeff handed the tiny slips to another man, who raised an eyebrow, only to have a ring was forced upon his finger.

Don’t Question it

He blinked before walking to the back of the office area, and picked up 8 envelopes, with those same exact numbers.

Holy fuck, this was actually working perfectly! Jeff would just give me the money, and I would leave.

The man walked back to Jeff, and as he handed Jeff the envelopes Jeff pulled the ring off.

**200CP Banked. Purchase?: Basic Training (Fate/Zero) (100CP). Purchased. 100CP Banked.**

That same star glowed brighter, and my knowledge of Formalcraft expanded, rising to meet the rest of my knowledge. This could be useful for future rituals.

I continued watching through Jeff’s eyes as he continued to walk to his office.

“Hey, Jeff, What the fuck?” He turned around to see an older short stocky man, the boss apparently, standing next to a security guard.

This was going way too smoothly

“A Client asked me to cancel their account and hand them the cash in it.”

“And you just obeyed?”

“She insisted.”

“And you asked Susan to try to avoid the $25,000+ detector why?”

Jeff frowned “Didn’t do that, Matt, she did that herself. Ask her why.”

Jeff tried to keep walking, only to be grabbed by the security guard. The boss seemed to give Jeff a deeper look “You really think you can embezzle- no, steal from a customer? I’ve got to say nice try, but three maxed withdrawals in less than an hour, and the system detects it. 4 pings went off.”

FUCK.

I sighed and sent Jeff a command. He punched the guard in the elbow, before grabbing the hand that had grabbed him and shoving a ring onto it. Matt began backing up, only to be grabbed by the guard “JUSTIN THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING.”

Jeff roughly shoved a ring onto his Boss’s finger, before he continuing walking to his office. He entered looking a little scatter-brained. He handed me the envelopes. I placed the envelopes into my Gradiated purse, along with the 5 rings I retrieved from his pocket, and shook his hands, pulling the ring off him, erasing my appearance from his memory. As he began to blink rapidly, I gave him a “Pleasure doing business with you.” And speed-walked, as fast as possible without looking too suspicious, out of his office. I shook the hands of Jeff’s boss, taking the ring off him, and erasing me from his memory, and doing the same for his security guard. I also erased myself from the secretary’s memory. I continued speedwalking down the stairs, and finally out the bank. I dematerialized the high heels, creating sneakers in their place, and ran down the street to my van.

I drove to the docks, tearing the now empty envelopes on the way. I changed into a casual outfit once more and walked out into the sand. I tossed the torn paper into the ocean and watched the various pieces drift and sink away. I sighed as I watched what few stars appeared twinkled in the reflective sea.

I had actually just done that…

I was going to destroy these rings. I incorporate each one into a familiar so that I would never use them again. I had nearly 200 grand on me at this point. I could survive for quite a while. I had mastered 5 people once, never again.

Never again.

My magic peaked around 4am, and I had plenty to spare. It would have to be tonight. I would not delay.

I drove back to the mall and bought 7 extra steel bowls and some extra reagents that were luckily mostly herbs.

I had to drive around until I found a place with a couple unguarded plugs that were connected to the grid. I knew I could probably use the Eguchi garage, but Tamir had a habit of working on his car when he couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to risk it.

I eventually found an abandoned warehouse near the docks, which had a couple plugs covered by flimsy plastic covers screwed into the system. It was probably gang-affiliated, but I didn’t care. As long as my ritual wasn’t interrupted.

I filled all bowls half-way up with brine from the sea, and threw a ring in each one. I then called to a pigeon nearby and extracted some of its blood using a gradiated needle, and injected a couple drops into each solution. As the pigeon flew away I threw in various reagents in different quantities and mixed them thoroughly, including the gold foil I had purchased earlier. I placed the bowls on a metal plate I began heating, and thus began boiling the solutions, with the reinforced stove. As the water began bubbling consistently, I threw in a vague angel-like statue made of clay and armature wire into every bowl, and continued pouring in mana to the ritual, using gradiated Formalcraft equipment.

I continued until the slight greys of the early early morning appeared on the horizon. It’s was about 4 AM, and my power was at its zenith. I poured in as much power as I could as I lowered the heat, and watched as the solutions quickly evaporated, and began turning into goo. I turned off the heating and watched as it continued cooling and solidifying into a metallic form. I was left with 8 little angel-like familiars, each about a foot tall, golden skin covered In robes of white feathers. Each stood up and began flying up with its wings, which were about 2 ft from tip to tip. In the center of each head was a single gemstone, be it a garnet or ruby, from the rings I had used.

-<O>\- -<O>-

I woke up at 8am, as always. I stepped into the warehouse I had parked next to, and dematerialized my clothes, washing myself with gradiated water. I created new clothes, and walked into Brown-Gold café again, ordering a Mocha and sitting at one of the tables. The TV in the corner was tuned into the morning news which was just beginning.

“Gooood Morning Brockton Bay! Welcome to Brockton’s Morning News, I’m Steffan Murphy, and we are starting with a very curious occurrence. A bank robbery! But not in the traditional sense, no. The police arrested Jeff Swoyer, Susan Stein, Anthony Cuomo, Matt Stewart, and Justin Kent for grand larceny. However, they only bothered to steal $196,652, and they were all senior bank employees, besides Kent who was a security guard.”

**300CP Banked. Purchase?: Basic Training (Fate/Stay Night) (200CP). Purchased. 100CP Banked.**

My gradiation air improved dramatically, I was basically a savant with the stuff, miles beyond any master in… The fuck was the moonlit world?

No, no distractions. I had to focus on the report.

“..Even weirder, they attempted to do this by merely emptying out a bank account that belonged to somebody, but the weirdness doesn’t end there. That person was Maria Drew, a dockworker who just hours after the robbery took place, was reported missing. Around midnight on Monday night, she apparently ran out of her apartment, taking only some personal belongings and leaving everything else, including all of her clothes, and disappearing into the night in her white van. The bank and police continue their joint investigation as to the location of Miss Drew, the location of all the funds, and the motive behind this bizarre robbery. Continuing onto our next story, the local PRT recently hosted an event at the Forsberg Gallery…”

Fuck. I had already destroyed the rings as an apology and vow to never master somebody again, but that wasn’t enough. Every single person this incident touched was implicated in a false conspiracy, and now the police were digging into the situation. How long before I was implicated through the security cameras? How long before I was dragged into a courtroom and birdcaged?

I had to come clean.

I really wanted to, I wanted to admit my crimes and let those people go free, rationally speaking the outcome was the same, so I might as well speed it up and relieve their suffering.

But my heart rebelled. I found myself looking at those disapproving eyes, coming from my father.

Those hateful eyes full of disgust.

Those damn eyes I was forced to deal with for 10 long years.

Those evil eyes that watched angrily as I drove away.

Those cruel eyes that would tear my heart apart with their glare.

The uncaring eyes of a warden.

Those eyes.

Those eyes coming from everyone I knew and loved.

I stood up quickly, as soon as I felt my body again, and marched out of the café, leaving a $50 bill on the table. I was a coward, and I couldn’t bring myself to take responsibility for what I had done. I couldn’t let myself be trapped again. Serial numbers of the bills would probably be released soon, so I had to exchange them as quickly as possible. I’d then hit the road. I had escaped against all the odds once before, I could do it again. So I spent the next day buying knickknacks and switching money around. I had managed to accomplish quite a bit, getting through the first $10,000 or so, but it wasn’t quick enough.

-<O>\- -<O>-

Coil was reading through a file a mole of his sent. It hadn’t taken till the end of the day before the suspicious activity had been found, and reported. The police had arrested all the people who played along, even when they should’ve blown the whistle.

Sergeant Jack Adams, who had personally filed the missing person report for Maria Drew, had gone through the case file and noticed the name of who the emptied bank account belonged to.

Coil clicked back to the folder and opened the grainy footage of Jeff Swoyer being interrogated a second time, scrubbing forward to when it actually began.

“So to be clear, your story is this Miss Drew entered your office, ordered you empty her account, and you didn’t think anything of it at the time?”

The man nodded “Just check the CCTV-“

“We have. I just want you to describe Miss Drew for us.”

Jeff seemed to freeze, he kept frowning, squinting, and then frowning again. “No clue. Can’t remember anything about her appearance.”

The detective glanced to the mirrored glass. “She had black hair…”

Jeff didn’t seem affected by the knowledge, continuing frowning “Did she? Honestly for the life of me can’t remember a thing.”

The detective nodded slowly, before leaving the room. He came back with two sheets of paper “Each of these has a description of Miss Drew, which one is more accurate?”

Jeff read them both slowly, continuing his frown-and-squint cycle. “No clue. Really don’t know what to tell you.”

Coil nodded. No wonder the PRT was investigating The Master. He looked at the grainy security footage trailing her from the bank offices upstairs to her leaving, then following her until she entered a white van and drove off. She seemed to have a strong Master Power… He sent the video over to Tattletale. He’d need his men to locate her, and then he’d make a ‘sales’ pitch to her. She was much too old to join the Undersiders, but she could still be useful.

-<O>\- -<O>-

I walked back into Brown-Gold’s, exhausted. My conflicted heart was bashing my mind and I honestly felt lost.

“You’re just in time for the Eventing News! I’m Marisha Fitzgerald. Continuing on the Drew-Bank situation. Around noon, of course, Deputy Director Samuel Renick gave a press conference announcing that the PRT was involved in the Drew & Bank investigation. The bank had been closed all day, and it was revealed that was a Master/Stranger protocol. Renick explained that it was currently believed a master controlled the suspects into committing their weird heist.”

The image switched to a clip of Renick at the press conference “Along with CCTV evidence and eyewitness testimony of unusual and illogical behavior, every suspect had memory gaps or failed to recollect basic facts of what they did that day. Multiple ‘culprits’ could not recall the appearance of our current suspect, no matter how many minor details were shared with them. Our current belief is that The Master kidnapped Miss Drew.”

It cut back to Marisha, who continued grimly “Two hours ago, the PRT released some CCTV footage, and all the serial numbers of the money stolen.”

It was a very grainy clip of the minor scuffle between Jeff, Justin, and Matt. It then zoomed down, following Jeff as he entered his office.

**300CP Banked. Purchase?: Basic Training (Fate/Stay Night) (200CP). Purchased. 100CP Banked.**

My Hypnosis had improved, reaching levels much like my gradiation air.

I just remembered these perks. Where would I end up with these “basic” thaumaturgies? No, No distractions, focus on the footage.

It showed me exiting Jeff’s office. For the most part, my face never faced the camera, although a bit of it showed after I shook the hands of Justin and Matt, but was super grainy. Thank god the bank didn’t have tinkertech cameras or anything.

The angle kept switching, showing me exiting the bank. “The police continue to search for Miss Drew, and the PRT continue to call for The Master to negotiate. Onto our next story…”

I finished my drink, paid, and left the café.

I hopped into my van and began driving it to the mall. With a gradiated hoodie and baggy jeans, I would hopefully be unnoticed on CCTV or anything. It took me a while to find the hardware store, but I managed to get a better carving kit. I then proceeded to walk to a camera store and purchase one of those flash-things.

I spent the night carving grooves into the license plate, after scratching the numbers off it, so that I could gradiate anything onto it.

As I awoke the next morning, I drove the van into an abandoned warehouse. I began carving grooves to channel gradiation to generate shielding around the van, and reinforcement to strengthen it and the engine, so that it could go faster. I surrounded the car in ironwood scraps and glass/acrylic shards, lit it all, and created a massive glass dome. My eight angels watched for anyone coming close.

The slag was colored like cobalt, and it dripped onto the car, being drunk up by both the van, but also the license plate. The heat sadly left clear burn marks.

But I had done it. I had turned a car into a mystic code. I giggled imagining the reaction of a Clocktower Magus. What was the clocktower again? I wracked my head, it was at the tip of my mind, just beyond the edge of my memories of learning all I knew of magecraft through instruction and experimentation.

I began carving grooves into the camera-flash-thing. I then placed it in the middle of a circle made of lilies. I lit the lilies on fire and created a glass dome. The Formalcraft equipment was positioned in the same way to channel the energy in.

As the ritual completed I was left with my Masterlight. That was not a bad name… I could make it flash with just mana, and any who saw the light would be affected by whatever Hypnotic effect I would be using. I was only going to use it to keep pursuers away.

Now I had just one thing left to do, I emptied out the van, and drove to the Gearbox, officially called The Vehicular Bay, it was a repair/refurbishment center, out near the city limits. I was quickly directed to the back, where the repair/refurbishment area was, to keep my absolute eyesore of a vehicle away from glancing eyes.

A middle-eastern-looking guy approached with a concerned face. As I rolled down the window, he began to speak in an accented broken English “Before you tell me what iz wrong wiz it, bleez say you also want to baint.”

“…It’s actually fine repair-wise, I just need it repainted.”

He glanced upwards and breathed a “ _Hamdulillah_.” He then looked back at me and signaled “Follow” He directed me into driving the car into the painting area. As I exited my vehicle and locked it, he began pointing to various cans of paint “What koulour you want?”

“I think I’ll go with that deep purple.”

“Deeb Burble Baint, ok. Come back in hour and shuld be finish.”

“An hour?”

“Iz very good paint, iz dry quickly.”

“It’s okay, I can wait.”

He nodded, as he began applying a thin layer of paint thinner onto the whole car. “Can I ask, what start za fire?”

“My little cousin did it by accident, which is why it’s fine. My uncle is a mechanic, so he double-checked to make sure everything was okay.”

He took a minute to process my words before he nodded “Kan I say? little kidz are very krazy. How start fire just like zat? I remember when niece of me was just kid, she steal tools and pretend to fix carz. First time? She almost dent in car. She was hit car with screwdriver!”

I giggled “How old is she now?”

The man was using some vacuum-like machine to suck up the dissolving paint. He frowned, and glanced at me a couple times. “Couple years smaller than you. Almost graduate.”

I nodded “How long have you been in the bay?”

“Sree, Foor months? I come here after Brozzer got sick.”

I nodded “I’ve been living here for… yeah 6 years at this point. Was born on the other side of the state, practically speaking.”

He took a second pass with paint thinner in the areas where there was still some residue, continuing to suck it up as it dissolved. As he looked the car over, he seemed to notice something. He carefully inspected an area of the van and began glancing all around it.

“Iz used car?”

“Yeah, I inherited it from my dad, it’s pretty old.”

He nodded “Iz very scratch under baint. Fill material no good.”

I walked up to the paint-less van, seeing all the grooves I had made earlier, now filled with that cobalt slag.

“Oh, no don’t worry about that. It might look weak, but it’s very strong.”

He raised an eyebrow as he looked at me. I resisted the urge to just use hypnosis to get him to start painting the car. Luckily he shrugged, probably assuming it to be a weird American thing. He then got a bunch of paper and tape, and covered all the windows with it. He then grabbed a large airbrush, about the size of a handgun, and began taking quick passes across the metal surface of the vehicle. He worked quickly, and about 15 minutes later there was a uniform coat across all the car.

He removed the paper and gave me a wide toothy smile. “Furty mineets, and shuld be dry.”

**300CP Banked. Purchase?: Basic Training (Fate/Stay Night) (200CP). Purchased. 100CP Banked.**

My reinforcement was boosted just like my Gradiation Air and Hypnosis, making me far beyond masterful with it. Just after I got it painted too… I’d need to recarve it at a later date. It was good enough for the minute. I looked back to Farouq, trying to ignore the anger at my benefactor. “Thanks.”

He swatted the air “No need, iz job.”

A couple mechanics stepped out into the small garage-like building. One of them giggled “Farouq, you need to stop showing up so early man… Boss is gonna get mad if you do too much overtime.”

He chuckled “Two Sings, One, You iz Sirty Mineets late, Two, Back home we saying.” He said a phrase in Arabic “Iz mean, if you have task, do task well. Good work take more time.”

The giggler threw up his hands “Well, we’ll be at tires if you need us.”

He chuckled again as they retreated to the tires station “Zey is good man, but bit too lazy.” He snorted and smiled again.

We continued to make small talk until the van was completely dry. I thanked Farouq and left.

I drove back into the city proper and entered the warehouse my eight angels had kept safe. I loaded all my belongings back into the van and sighed. I’d have to lay low for a while, but things were going good. Soon I’d try to make something more human-like, see if I could make a familiar that looked like me, and have her take my place for a while.

-<O>\- -<O>-

Coil was intrigued. Tattletale had gone through all the footage, and had identified rings, barely perceptible in the pixels, that all the “culprits” had worn on that day for at least some short time. It wasn’t tinkertech though, and the rings looked mostly mundane. She wasn’t a master, she some sort of Enchantment power, much like dauntless, but that had been all Tattletale had managed to nail down. He wouldn’t need a sales pitch, he could just kidnap her and have the doctor keep her impressionable and obedient. He’d need to figure out her power more, but she could have a lot of potential!

WEDGDG was likely to figure it out soon as well, but the PRT was not likely to push to recruit. No matter, he would make sure no contact between the two parties emerged.

After Tattletale had figured that she was using her van as a home, Coil had directed his minions to find her.

He split the timeline. In the first, he did nothing, continuing work on his various plans and projects.

In the second, he sent the rest of his men to search for the enchantress. Mostly focused on abandoned properties in the bay. It was about after four hours that he heard two squads had gone MIA and stopped responding. Their last communications both placed them in a general area west of the Asian district, a bit after the boardwalk ended. Not too far from the Undersider’s base… Still, she had neutralized two squadrons easily, likely mastering them. He was going to trash this timeline anyway, so he directed all men to the area.

Not a single one returned, four hours later, and he signed.

The second timeline collapsed into nothing.

She was more dangerous than he had expected.

He’d have to be… A lot more careful.

-<O>\- -<O>-

It had taken a while to get the prototype online, but Armsmaster’s Image Enhancer worked perfectly. Velocity felt like a hacker from a TV show being told to “Enhance.”

He watched the 8k footage, as the master walked out of the office, and slipped some weird rings not there before off Matt Stewart and Justin Kent. He continued watching as she left, seeming to mostly avoid everyone. She walked down the street then crossed it, entering an alley where a white van was parked. He had run the plate earlier, it belonged to Maria Drew.

Why use such a round-about method to rob a bank? Why not just have them print a bunch of money for you? Why kidnap Maria Drew of all people? Why use the vehicle of who you kidnapped? The master had entered the driver seat, so it wasn’t like she was having Maria drive her around. Everyone had agreed she looked very uncomfortable during most of the footage, so he could only assume it was a trial run. And what was up with the rings? A way of marking who was mastered? Could she not tell?

The door to the side opened, and Ethan stepped in. “Rob, haven’t you looked at that already?”

“Yeah, just trying to see if I can figure anything else out.”

Ethan walked to him and gave him a side hug “I get you’re worried, but the tapes’ in Thinktank hands, and they can find a lot more than you do much quicker. It’ll just take them a couple days at most.”

“I know, but I’m sure there’s got to be a thread here, something I can pull on and bring everything crashing into place.”

Ethan gave a sympathetic sigh “You’re looking for a needle in a haystack, and unlike a thinker, you don’t have a magnet. You know what?” He pulled his mask down “Grab your helmet, and come with me.”

Velocity grabbed it off the desk, put it on, and followed Assault out of their quarters. “Where are we headed?”

Assault turned around, now walking backward, and smiled “We’re going on patrol!”

They were running across rooftops, eyes, and ears peeled. It had been about 20 minutes since telling Miss Militia they would take over for her, And Velocity was enjoying himself. He loved the feeling of air on his face as he dashed across the rooftops of the city, stopping every once in a while to make sure suspicious things were merely mundane. Velocity took every opportunity to admire the world around him after things were checked. He had grown up in Brockton, and he patrolled as often as any other hero, but something about this specific one that was cathartic.

**300CP Banked. Purchase?: Tools Of The Trade (Fate/Stay Night) (200CP). Purchased. 100CP Banked.**


	3. 2- Escalation

I looked at all the scattered equipment around me. I had expected my knowledge of Formalcraft to be improved, but instead, I dove into the waters, reaching for another star from the collection I was connected to, with 5 stars remaining. I had grabbed this one, one of two in reach, and as I surfaced back to reality I found them in front of me. My power apparently could give me things.

Huh.

I had been using gradiated Formalcraft equipment, and while they were decent, they didn’t measure up to proper Formalcraft equipment, which I was just given. My rituals would be improved quite a bit!

But that could be dealt with later, I had things to do. I wore a hoodie and baggy jeans to the Brown-Gold café and watched the morning news. Luckily there was no press conference or follow up on the “Drew-Bank Situation.”, the only information that was mildly interesting was the First Mayoral Debate, taking place in two weeks. This had been my routine these last 2 days of lying low.

I noticed a guy who kept glancing at me. He was wearing a polo, khakis and shades. He had another man dressed similarly next to him, who seemed glued to his phone, texting rapidly. They were drinking tea, but this didn’t feel right. I got up and left after finishing my drink.

As soon I was out of their field of view, I ducked into an alleyway, and used a nearby pigeon to observe. They stepped out and began walking in the direction they had seen me leave, so I dragged them into the alleyway. I used hypnosis to make them forget seeing me, and sent them back to the café.

They drunk up the instructions, and I left. I had to buy some stuff for todays experiments. I went to the mall for my shopping trip, using my reinforced senses to look for anyone that may seem to recognize me, and avoid anyone who was looking around too avidly. I didn’t like the fact that two people had been looking for me. They were likely PRT, they knew the most about me and would have the resources to organize such searches.

Yesterday I had forayed deeper into self-hypnosis, allowing me to pay attention to basically everything, and analyze my situation to the best of my ability. I was also constantly calm, or rather I had put a maximum bound on how intense my emotions would get before I would get snapped back to the center.

My mind buzzed slightly with all the sensory input, and my eyes were constantly moving, but I could handle it.

I managed to grab all reagents with only a few curious looks given, but as I was exiting I noticed a man trailing me from afar. Similar-ish outfit. Meant to look mundane.

How the hell did they keep finding me? I used the flow of people moving to slowly close the gap by slowing down my speed and sticking to the sides. The man knew what was coming, and did what I did, keeping his distance. I smiled and speedwalked back into the crowd, ducking slightly. The man got enraged and practically ran into the crowd, but I managed to cricle around him and grab his shoulder. I made him forget seeing me aswell, and walked him to the edge of the pedestrian activity. He turned around and kept walking into the mall.

Seriously, how were they tracking me- I almost facepalmed and fished my phone out of my pocket. As I hopped into my truck I tore out the batteries.

I entered the warehouse I had all but claimed as my own began setting up another familiar ritual. Seeing as they had tracked my phone to this location, I’d do this ritual then leave. I had plenty of eyes in the skies, I wanted to specifically make myself some muscle. I was strong, but I didn’t want to always be fighting.

The statuette I made as a basis for this familiar had taken most of the clay. It was about two feet high, so I had given it a lean, yet well-defined form. I had covered it in scores, that with the ironwood scraps and a couple other reagents, would allow it to reinforce itself, but also me to remotely activate reinforcement on it. Instead of starting with ocean brine, I started with a beef broth I had purchased at the mall earlier. I dumped in the ironwood and various foils.

I added a bunch of jewelry, stirred the mixture a bit, and watched it slowly solidify.

Once it was all over, I looked at the minotaur-like being in front of me. It lacked horns, but the bovine nature was apparent. Besides being humanoid, there was only a very slight human quality to it. It wasn’t very human-like, but its eyes certainly held a spark of intelligence, which was a step forward.

“Minas, attack.”

Green lines surrounded his legs, as he jumped forward and tried to give me a reinforced punch. I used reinforced senses to catch it, and tossed him to the side. The process repeated a couple times. He was fighting like an animal, trying to land a punch or kick anywhere he could as quickly as possible. Specifically punches or kicks. Not very creative…

I mentally ordered it to stop and sighed. felt like I had hit a plateau over the last two days of lying low. I could only make a familiar so smart, and only get it to look so human. Yesterday’s try for muscle looked like a mermaid more than anything. I had tried with water from a water bottle at a local grocery, and it still looked artificial. I was still purchasing materials every once in a while, and I was using the unchanged money at the Market, where people were too lazy to check.

I’d recycle them all eventually, once I made actual progress.

Was it the materials that weren’t good enough?

Perhaps I could use reinforcement on their minds?

**300CP Banked. Purchase?: The Family Art (Fate/Stay Night) (400CP). Insufficient Funds. 300CP Banked.**

I dove back into the sea of stars, barely missing a star before the pressure pushed me back into reality. So close.

I activated it on Minas, only to quickly turn it off. Most familiars did not have bodily needs, all their energy coming from my prana, going through our innate connection. It didn’t take much, and the Super Pigeons were surprisingly efficient with it, but mental reinforcement was very prana intensive. Then again, I had gone full force there. I very slightly reinforced Minas’ Mind, and that spark glimmered brighter, but it was still eating my prana quickly. Once again.

I let the frustration exit through my voice. “Minas, Attack.”

He reinforced his whole physique and jumped up. He jabbed me in the side, using the oppurtunity created by me compressing that side, and thus bringing my face lower, to punch me in the face. I staggered back, and caught his hand that was aiming to hit my other side, and tossed him aside. IT WAS WORKING!

He jumped up, ran towards me, only to drop to a slide, nearly tripping me. I sidestepped him. I frowned and stopped him. I had seen that move more than a couple times. It was last summer when I had last watched The Xaolin War. That was one of Roberto’s signature moves. I sighed.

No actual improvement, beyond reaching deeper into my mind to get a more complex idea of what “fight” was.

No creativity.

Nothing new.

They were what they were from the moment of creation. They’d never change. Never Grow. A spark of intelligence, but no fire of life. A petty copy. I’d have to still pilot every fight they’d be in, so I might as well be there myself.

I was getting tired of being cooped up in this warehouse. I dressed myself in some really baggy clothes and went on a run, afterwards I’d leave. I wanted to let loose and go at my full speed, but then I’d be outing myself as a mover. I was going at a jogging pace for me, but was approaching a run by a regular person, which made my posing awkward as I had to make It seem like I was pushing myself to some small degree. It took me ten minutes to get the consistent balance down, and I hoped it would be convincing enough for people in the area.

I saw two large red forms sprint by above, Assault and Velocity. Most PRT heroes didn’t come in this deep into the docks, lest Lung be offended. They had been patrolling together every night since Thursday, and it was now Saturday night. As I contemplated what PHO thought about them, I was reminded of the fact that the laptop I rarely used was still with the Eguchis.

I’d figure it out.

I admired the stars twinkling in the night, as I ran through the dark streets. I breathed the cool night air as I heard all the tiny sounds of life, hidden in the morning, splitting the silence. Ignoring all the danger and pain, a unique natural beauty arose. Of course, this was the docks, so it wasn’t even 5 minutes before I heard a loud argument between what sounded like 3 men. A merchant and two clients?

The argument quickly intensified, and suddenly a bunch of people began yelling expletives loudly at each other.

BANG

The quiet night was split by a gunshot. A much quieter “-THERFUCKER” came from the same area, and before I knew it, there was a gunfight in the docks.

I wanted to punch myself for not having traced earmuffs at any point, but then again only airplane-grade ones would be useful in this situation. I automatically started walking away, I was too busy, I had to do… Nothing. I was completely free. I could do literally anything. For once in my life, there wasn’t anything to do. Literally, anything I wanted to.

I took a deep, exhilarating breath.

I began running to the sound, finally getting the opportunity to do some good. I traced a nearby car and covered myself in a rough armor formed of shiny red plates to conceal my athletic clothes. I then jumped onto the rooftops and continued rushing to the scene. The fight had escalated a bit, and it seemed like two or three ABB men, it was unclear, were firing across the street at a pair of merchants. I dropped to the ground and gradiated a reinforced plate of steel, stopping any more bullets from passing between the two groups.

I poured more mana into the structure to keep it going, and then ran towards the merchants. Bullets glanced off my reinforced armor, but the sheer amount of bullets from the machine guns were stopping me from approaching as fast. I grabbed the closest’s gun and tossed it to the side, I then grabbed the fleeing man and gradiated rope around his body.

The other merchant began to flee, so I ran after him and did the same. I tore their gun away and placed it in a pile with the other. I deconstructed the barrier, planning on grabbing the ABB, only to find Assault & Velocity standing over the knocked-out bodies of three ABB thugs. They were both in battle-stances, and I immediately relaxed in an attempt to communicate I wasn’t planning on attacking. Assault still decided to clarify “We gonna fight?”

I shook my head “No, I just came to stop the firefight.”

They glanced at each other and dropped their fighting stances. Assault stepped forward, offering a handshake “Well if that’s what you wanted you certainly succeeded, good job honestly.”

I nodded, trying to not let my fear of being recognized as The Master and glee at meeting heroes into my voice. “Thanks.”

“We’re gonna need to cuff them though.”

“Of course.”

The heroes cuffed the ABB, then grabbed a thug each, and I dropped the Gradiations.

I quickly stepped to the side and traced one of the guns while the thugs struggled. I, unfortunately, didn’t miss Assault’s gaze, and he gave me a look “What was that?”

**500CP Banked. Purchase?: The Family Art (Fate/Stay Night) (400CP). Purchased. 100CP Banked.**

I dove deep, deeper than I had gone before, and grabbed a single star. Two left to go.

I processed the knowledge of the star and Holy fuck I was so stupid. I gained advanced knowledge of alchemy, especially transmutation. I had minor knowledge of displacement, also called Flash Air, and thought acceleration.

I could improve my rituals quite a bit more. I learned of so many ways of making things more efficient with transmutation, of ways to fine-tune the formalcraft further, to manage to make much more advanced familiars. I could actually grasp the magical efficiencies existent within the pigeons a little better, although the biological efficiency was somewhat beyond me.

Drawing me out of my thoughts was assault raising his voice a bit “What did you do to the gun?”

“Oh, right, sorry, that was a scan.” At the weird look he continued giving, I tapped back into my 8 years of lying “Wanted to make sure it wasn’t tinkertech or anything. I realized a second ago I don’t need to explain the specifics of how my scan works.”

He tilted his head slightly and smiled “Such details though…”

I snorted “You wouldn’t understand it anyways.”

He shrugged, “Anyways, Merchants don’t have tinkertech guns, Squealer does cars. By the way, before the police arrive, I should say we’re gonna have to write an incident report... Gonna need a name for that.”

I scratched the back of my neck “Yeah, I honestly wasn’t expecting to do anything like this soon, so no idea. How about…” What could I possibly go with? Magecraft was all about tapping into the vague and undefined, about Mysteries… Mystery… Occult… Mystic! No… “Mystique?”

Assault smiled “That works. I don’t have a database or anything, but I don’t think that’s been taken.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear, bye!” I quickly retreated to a rooftop quickly, not wanting to give either hero a second longer to possibly recognize me, and watched what happened from a distance, I watched as the police arrived with a transport, which they loaded the five thugs into. The whole affair took about 10 minutes. Both heroes then shot off. They were stacking their powers together in some weird manner, allowing them to go faster than usual.

I continued hopping above the rooftops of the city in armor. The rush of adrenalin I had felt stopping all those merchants was exhilarating. I could still do this once I got a solution to being missing. I could do some good. I’d just need to get all the charges dropped, or rather that would be preferable since I didn’t want to continue living in the van and warehouse. I also didn’t want the PRT coming after me, so I prayed neither hero recognized me. That was going to be a mess, but I could still be a hero.

I had some experiments to run though, so I dropped the armor and switched back to the athletic clothes, “running” to the warehouse.

-<O>\- -<O>-

As the police wrapped up everything, Assault and velocity continued their patrol. Velocity sighed after a minute “Odds?”

Assault shook his head “I mean all we have is that they’re both using rudimentary equipment, and live in the docks area. We didn’t really get a good look at her. She touched the gun to ‘scan’ it, which could easily be the effect of her basic armor”

Velocity nodded “Those lenses were real trippy.” The woman had put some weird marble lenses on her eyes, flat yet deep. “But they look identical, like how many thick 7ft ladies do you know?”

Assault shrugged “It’s probably Override, but like all we saw was some projection ability and a scan. Nothing override did. Not enough to judge, and I don’t feel like stalking a good Samaritan to see.” Override was what they had gone with internally after WEDGDG figured out she was an enchantress of some sort. Master/Stranger gear was what she first showed off, so she was certainly dangerous.

Velocity pursed his lips for a second “They look identical, and a woman's life is at risk.”

“You didn’t see her skin, how do you know that isn’t just any lady in some power-armor?”

“Power Armor is not that thin! And she said she wasn’t expecting this, she showed off a projection ability, and her armor looked like a mangled car.”

“Ok, its her, but I don’t want you going against the Director's orders to stay away. She’s either gonna continue patrolling for a while or go home. We should check out that warehouse while we still have a chance.” Assault snorted “Velocity, isn’t it kinda silly that I’m having to be the voice of reason? Like come on, I get you’re worried about Jeff, but you gotta think this through.”

Velocity shrugged as he jumped across another gap, but the rage in his voice was still noticable “You win.”

“Ey! Come on, cheer up, the warehouse we tracked is right here, let’s check it out.”

They jumped off the roof they were on, landing above the small warehouse. Assault grabbed the lock of the warehouse’s ceiling acsess, and with a lunge it suddenly crumpled in his hand. The heroes glanced to eachother, before opening the door quickly, only allowing it to make a small creak, and bust in.

They decended into the warehouse proper, shocked to find it mostly empty. Assault signaled to his partner, “go on lookout, I’ll figure this out.”

Assault frowned as he approached the van, you would expect the purple paint to be old and dull, but it looked like fresh under the flashlight. He pointed it in, seeing a bunch of lumps hidden under a mess of blankets. He then shone it on the license plate. I was blank. Or rather the numbers and paint had been scratches up, and it had a bunch of cobalt slag lines inset among the aluminum.

“Velocity, the license plate is scratched blank, but it has some weird lines of some slag lines wrapped around it, any clue?”

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The speakers in his ears clicked soflty “Weren’t the rings used covered in the same shit?”

“You watched the footage twenty times, not me.”

“Yeah, they were, but they were colored red. Are they all straight?”

“Yeah, they wiggle a bit but they head mostly straight?”

“Huh. The other ones were curving all over the place.”

“The fuck?”

“No clue. Probably won’t let her mindfuck you if you grab it, but I don’t know what to- fuck, she’s running over.”

“Fuck. Should we get out of here?”

“You can’t find Maria drew?”

Assault began rushing up the stairs “Nope. Not to mention we haven’t looked into the possibility she has some other connection to Maria Drew. Or that she’s maria drew, but got mutated by her power.”

“Are you trying to say we have a casual conversation?”

“You saw her against those thugs. And she can master. Fuck no.” Assault looked to the other red-clad hero as he stepped onto the roof. “Let’s leave, don’t let her see us. Our priority is the rescue. Arms will want to set surveillance up here, now that we know she’s here.”

-<O>\- -<O>-

I sighed in releif as the heroes flew away. I had barely spotted them with my reinforced eyes, but I slowed down to a “jog” to avoid getting there too fast. I’d have to leave, now.

I burst into the warehouse and glanced at all the alchemical tools set up neatly. I sighed and tossed them all into my van, which I then hopped into and began driving away. I was considering my trace of the red painted-car. I activated a gradiation, and the exterior of the van became red rather than red. I would get it painted electric blue or something tommorow morning.

I slowed as I entered the more industrial area of the docks. I grabbed the electric heater I had and carved transmutation, connection, displacement and gradiation grooves into it.

I enchanted it, turning it into a mystic code for alchemy. It would now run on magic. I drove northward, stopping shortly before the boardwalk ended, and set up in an empty workshop/garage.

I was safe now, so I could afford to experiment.

I grabbed seawater and did a basic magical distillation, getting pure h2o and a bunch of crystalized salts I had arranged into a rod as I had pulled out. I had all three humanoid familiars enter a large gradiated bowl atop the electric heater, and then commanded two of my Super Pigeons to enter as well. I added all the standard reagents, taking care to carve focus grooves of Thought Acceleration and Reinforcements into a rough clay tablet, which I hardened with gold and mana, before adding.

I knew it couldn’t be that creative, it didn’t have a human soul and I wasn’t about to try to create an artificial one or anything, but it might be a bit better with two pigeon souls made one.

It barely took two hours and a half to do the whole thing, my knowledge of alchemy cutting the time necessary by nearly half!

I watched my creation rise from the smoking bowl. Its flesh was much like Minas’, but covering its flesh in areas which didn’t flex much, there were patches of a curious combination of Piscean & Avian scales, a shimmering corn-yellow armor. It’s four hands, because yes its feet were like hands, were clawed like talons, its face had a bovine nose, yet Piscean eyes, its teeth were more like a serrated beak. It was nearly as tall as me.

What would be a good name? Fighter… Gladiator? Gladius!

I considered what else I would need to continue patrolling the streets, since I didn’t have confirmation the heroes recognized me, I would continue doing it.

I took my sunglasses and carved focus-grooves of Memory Partition, the most complex magic I knew, Thought Acceleration and Reinforcement. The Reinforcement would allow me to see more, Thought Acceleration would allow me to process things faster, and Memory Partition would allow me to process all sensory input from afar.

Combining my knowledge of familiars, reinforcement/trace, and gradiation air, I etched a bunch of grooves into ironwood scraps, and through a ten-minute ritual, made them perfect trace/reinforce/gradiation anchors. I tossed them into a gradiated pouch, and stepped out into the cool night air once more, before enveloping myself in red steel armor.

I eventually found a mugging, and tossed an anchor at the mugger. He was wrapped up in steel cabling before he knew it.

I hopped down and helped the young lady up “You okay?”

She seemed deep in shock “Y- y- I- Wha- H-”

“Do you need medical attention?”

She shook her head “I- I’m fine. I just didn’t expect that…”

“You gotta be more careful, especially in these parts of town.”

“I am careful! I was just distracted so I hesitated with the pepper spray…”

“Alright, be more vigilant. Also, could you call the cops? Wouldn’t want this guy to mug anyone else for a while.”

The blond nodded, fishing a phone out of her purse. I looked to the mugger, who was writhing about. “You’re not gonna get out of those, stop trying.” I rolled my eyes as he yelled muffled explatives at me.

We waited, and eventually, the police showed up. I released the man, but held him still so he could be cuffed. One of the officers looked to me “Name?”

“Mystique.”

“Alright, thanks for the help.”

“You’re welcome!”

I ran off, stopping a couple other muggings and a robbery, having to ask victims and/or bystanders to call the police each time.

It was roughly midnight when my reinforced eyes noticed it. A bunch of bugs in the area began to suddenly fly up at the same time, and start heading southward, or perhaps to a distant point? There was a slight curve in their directions. I began running as silently as I could towards a rough estimate of the center, only to spot something out of the corner of my eye. A point of orange light, coming from a lighter. Several figures surrounded the lighter, and a bunch more were standing around the area, all Asian, displaying green and red somewhere on there garments. ABB.

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I froze in the middle of the street and I dove deep into the stars, reaching for a deep star, the deepest star yet, only to miss. I sighed and looked back to the thugs on the street.

I decided to ignore the weird phenomenon with the bugs in favor of pursuing the ABB. They were clearly up to something. I bounded across the rooftops towards them, stopping in a building facing the street they were congregating on, watching from afar. ABB were slowly increasing in numbers, and they all seemed excited. I dropped two anchors on either side of the building they were standing in front of, on my side of the road, before circling around the group and dropping two behind the building. I was hoping to trap them. I watched as another band of ABB walked over, only to recognize one of them. Kaito was walking with the other ABB thugs, carrying a portable cooler with both hands, clearly full of something.

I watched Kaito join the others and start conversing with a couple of the other thugs. He looked slightly uncomfortable, but was mostly blending in nicely.

We had really tried to keep him away from the ABB, but you could only do so much when a teenager goes to Winslow, there was a substantial ABB population in that place, and the biracial teen took more from his mother. As soon as they walked to the front of the store, I jumped across the street, landing on the roof of the store. I watched as a tall figure walked out of the store, dressed in a cloak and a metal mask, the Slitherer seemed to mentally laugh at his appearance, as if the man himself was a joke. All the thugs around him gave a quick cheer. I reinforced my ears and listened intently.

“Listen, Undersiders have been pain in our side for a while now.” Lung, who wasn’t hard to recognize, which made me question how my patron saw him as a joke, the Dragon of Kyushu had fought Leviathan to a standstill, spoke in a thick accent “We go over and get rid of them, then drink a bit.” He said that last part gesturing to Kaito, who was now seriously uncomfortable, and a smiling ~20? 25? year-old next to him. I figured the cooler was probably full of bottles of Inko’s Booze “They love to play dead, so must shoot them ok? I say again, shoot the children, just shoot. Doesn’t matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?”

Murmurs and smiles had spread among the 14 gangsters, Kaito excluded obviously, and they began laughing and whispering to each other in various Asian languages. They were all carrying guns, planning on shooting some rival gang. My conscious mentally slapped me, a rival gang of kids. I had to stop Lung, get Kaito out of here, and then locate and try to help the Undersiders.

I had nearly gotten roped in with the merchants when I first came to Brockton Bay, and I could only imagine the hopelessness that would push Kids into a gang, I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of them were orphans. I imagined a kid without that wanderlust and optimism that most forgot by their adulthood. I pushed down the returning memories of my childhood, _Mitch wasn’t that bad_ , and focused back on the ABB.

Not to mention Kaito! What the fuck did he think he was thinking?

A group of five walked up, and one of them asked a question in what I believed was Korean. Lung responded in kind, temporarily grabbing the arm of a thug near him to read his watch, before finishing his answer. Another three arrived in a car.

I heard a slight creaking as an insectoid person climbed up the fire escape and lied down near the edge, peering down. She looked like a young girl, no older than Kaito. Based on that, and their outfit, I could deduce they were likely a villain, probably a member of the Undersiders. Had they anticipated this? More interesting was The Slitherer’s reaction, it was not quite scared, it’s emotion was best described like an “Oof! Holy shit! Yeah, avoid them!” feeling, but also mixed with a fangirl-like excitement… What? She didn’t see me at first, but after a few bugs flew past me, she suddenly turned back to me.

She was frozen in fear. I slowly approached “Do you want to take him out?”

She nodded.

Then the bugs arrived.

The flies, beetles, and moths flew down in a massive torrent, biting at the flesh of the people below.

A bug controller, that made sense.

If she had eyes in the sky, I could afford to have some too. I activated my sunglasses, and smiled as my mind accelerated and began processing the reinforced sensory input of my supers & I. About 150 meters away was a group of four riding three massive beasts, engaged with teleporting dust I realized was Oni Lee. The beasts were really spry and kept managing to narrowly miss the grenades the bomber kept tossing. The four capes (possibly also Undersiders? I was too far away to tell if they were kids) gave my patron a sense of nostalgia, like when seeing a friend if you haven’t seen in a while, or looking at old photos.

I had to help the Undersiders, so I called Gladius to me. While he was flying here, I would need to focus on one of the Asian villains.

Oni Lee or Lung?

Lung was much more dangerous, and he was beginning to ramp up, releasing bursts of fire to burn away the bugs that bit and stung at him.

I heard Kaito yell in pain as his coat caught fire. Gradiated water exited one of the anchors and whipped at the garment until it was extinguished. I wanted to bring him to me with Flash Air, so I could lecture him, but the bug girl was also here. The anchor wrapped him in steel cabling, then pulled him away from the action. I used it to pull him up to the top of a building across the street. I would leave him there until I could deal with him.

**600CP Banked. Purchase?: Bonds Of Fate (Fate/Stay Night) (600CP). Purchased. 0CP Banked.**

I suddenly retreated from reality, and grabbed the deepest, largest star I had ever seen so far, and knowledge invaded my mind. The knowledge of modern medicine and biology. The skill of decades spent doing surgeries, the advanced knowledge of years of refined alchemy all in the name of creating new life. Principles and Concepts I had never even considered, pushed even further by my alchemical knowledge, all shoved into my head. The creation of homunculi. No more false life, I could achieve an actual flame. My head had throbbed with knowledge, as the jumble of information reformatted itself and fit itself neatly at the back of my mind.

I could create sapient life, perfected sapient life. My knowledge of alchemy and the creation of living familiars pushed this further. I couldn’t bring back souls nor create them, I’d need sex cells for that and so I couldn’t really touch the full power for a while, but the principles could be used elsewhere. I could easily make a familiar that resembled my original form, just how would I deal with the Drew-Bank situation?

I was knocked out of my thoughts as a pointed laugh echoed through the night air.

Lung looked up and jumped onto the store, a glow intesifying from the inside of his mouth and nose.

I jumped forward, reinforcing my whole body, slamming into the Dragon of Kyushu. He flew back as the power of a bodyslam by an athlete-magus of The Age Of Gods worked through his system. His scales ground and scraped against the street as he slid to a stop, 20 meters away.

A nasty roar flew our of his open mouth, a scream of rage bursting out, a scream that was suddenly replaced by the roar of a raging fire as red flame flew out of his maw, followed by slag-like spittle.

The man leaned back, and hopped back onto his feet, glaring at me with murderious intent.

A reinforced punch of mine could form large cracks in roads at the very least. I had bodyslammed the man and what bruises and dents appeared were beginning to fade and correct themselves.

FUCK.

I was glad I was calm, despite all the emotions I was feeling, or rather relativley calm compared to the emotions I should be feeling. It was hard to explain the nuances, but I could still think rationally. Looking at Lung, I could see his flesh was covered in discolorations, and the best strategy would be to knock him out, which would become exponentially harder as he ramped up. I gradiated a large iron club and lunged at Lung, swinging it savagely as I descended to meet him on the ground.

A nasty cRRSH echoed through the night air. The swing had cracked his head open, but he did not fall. He adjusted his footing, seeminly dizzy, but he didn’t fall. He continued regenerating, now even quicker. He roared with rage and threw up a torrent of flame at me. I gradiated a steel wall, blocking the incendiary attack.

I grabbed his roaring, regenerating body, and tossed it down the street with as much force as I could. He was getting stronger, so I needed to knock him out as quickly as possible, but I wasn’t sure that would be possible for much longer. So my new strategy was to get him far away that by the time he came back he’d be calmer and I just needed him restrained, realistically speaking. I hopped back onto the roof of the store and hid, hoping that his rage would obscure his persistance of vision. The bug girl grabbed my shoulder, looking nauseous. “We need to knock him out.”

I shook my head “Too late for that…”

She tensed her fingers as thoughts seemed to fly through her head “Then we need to calm him down.”

I looked at her and shrugged “That’s what I’m doing.”

I watched as Lung seemed to keep ramping up as he ran back. Gladius dove before him, holding my Masterlight in his hands. At my command, he held it up to the Dragon’s eyes, and flashed it “CALM DOWN.” The light commanded.

The cape began to quickly shrink, his drive leaving his form. As soon as I stopped pouring my mana into the light, however, did Lung immediately start growing again. I sighed, I was scared this would happen.

I began running to the cape while directing Gladius to drop the Masterlight and engage Oni Lee.

I grabbed one of my angels and undid the transmutation that made it, making it once more a chunk of clay, metallic foils, and a master ring. It was my only long-term hypnosis item available. I ran at the Dragon, only to get knocked back by a punch to the head. He managed to shatter my helmet, causing it to dissipate.

I was always calm, but I allowed myself a glare at the nearly-dead man before me. I ran forward, and tore off one of the villain's fingers. As it began to grow again, I forced the ring onto a bone and fused it in place with transmutation. “CALM DOWN. THERE IS NO DANGER HERE.”

The man once more collapsed, as his power rapidly receded. He began coughing hard, as patches of discolored blood vessels and skin grew more saturated.

“I fucking knew it.” I turned around and saw Velocity perched on a nearby roof. “You’re Override, aren’t you?”

“Override?”

“The Cape who robbed the bank. Drew-Bank.”

I froze “W- What? How’d you know?”

“1. Your face.” It was at that point I had just remembered that Lung’s punch had broken my gradiated helmet, and thus dissipated it. “2. Your bodytype is pretty unique. 3. You just mastered Lung.”

I gradiated a new helmet “You could call it mastering, but all I did was make him calm down.”

Velocity shrugged “Still mastering, really.”

“Would you have rather the dragon burn the docks down?”

The red-clad cape snorted “I’m not willing to hear a utilitarian argument for brainwashing.” He then tossed a grenade at me. I was perfectly calm, and I had yet to deactivate my Thought Acceleration. It was likely a containment foam grenade, so I could afford to do this. I used Flash Air to switch our positions. Looking back, I saw velocity quickly enveloped in Containment Foam. I was correct.

**200CP Banked. Purchase?: Child Rearing 101 (Fate/Legends: Garden Of Avalon) (200CP). Purchased. 0CP Banked.**

I dove back into the stars. A star I could easily obtain, and had forgotten up until now, was before me. The last of this collection. I grabbed the star and grabbed my head.

An older art than that of Bonds of Fate, It allowed me to use any small part of a body for genetic material, and, with a weird application of Witchcraft, a sort-of-cousin to Magecraft much like Alchemy, the creation of a soul from said material.

I could design a being with a specific purpose, using witchcraft to tie it to their destiny, and the child would rise in that purpose quickly, as well as reach adulthood in a year. I could process this all later, I had to focus back on reality.

I looked through Gladius’s eyes. He dodged a grenade, and I pushed more magical energy into him as he reinforced his legs. I helped him tackle the villain, using my knowledge of biology to help him strike the teleporter in a nerve-cluster in the shoulder, knocking him out.

The beasts had stopped, and a rider in bike leathers and a skull helmet, around 20, waved. “Thanks for the help, sure saved us some effort.”

I controlled Gladiuses throat “You’re welcome.”

The blond behind the biker smiled “You have a puppet. Were you behind the bugs? Where are you?”

Gladius glanced in the direction of Lung “I was busy taking lung out.”

The blond seemed a little frustrated “And the bugs?”

“Undersiders. You don’t know your own teammates powers?”

They looked at eachother and the biker looked back to Gladius, face obscured by the helmet “There’s just the four of us.”

“Ah. I see. Well excuse me, I need to make sure Oni Lee is taken by the PRT.”

The blond nodded, slightly annoyed, and flicked the biker on the shoulder, and they rode away.

I ordered gladius to place Oni Lee next to Lung’s knocked out body, then head back to the workshop.

I glanced around me with my eyes, spotting Assault talking to bug girl on the rooftop of the store. Slitherer seemed very interested in that fact, but also weirdly happy for the girl. That was one teen saved.

I ran across a couple rooftops to get onto the Building where Kaito was writhing in fear as I approched.

I crouched before him and dematierialized my armor, leaving only the atheltic clothes. He froze as he saw my face, barely lit in the night. I dematerialized the cable from around him, and picked up the gradiation anchor, before grabbing the boy and walking towards the fire escape.

“M- Maria?”

“SHH. Let’s talk once we’re out of the area.”

We walked down the fire-escape in silence, and once we were a safe distance away I pulled on his ear. “OW!”

“What the fuck were you doing!?”

He stood on the tips of his toes, shifting his posture so there was less pull “Chill! Chill! Chill! Freddy’s been buying Mom's wine from me for a while. He said there was a special occasion and that he would buy a bunch, so I came with a bunch, I didn’t know what was happening I swear!”

I released his ear and sighed “There’s a reason we say stay away from those folks. If I wasn’t there, you might’ve burned to death.”

He looked down solemnly as we continued walking to the Daydream. “I’m sorry.”

“You better be.”

“…what happened to you? Mom & Dad didn’t want me to watch the news, but I heard someone kidnapped you and stole all your money.”

I rolled my eyes “PRT thinks I kidnapped myself.”

He looked me up and down “I mean… you don’t look like I remember…”

I sighed “Don’t get me started, Kai, Powers aren’t always that great.”

Kaito froze “Do all powers make you change shape!?”

I laughed “No, it’s pretty rare. I’m just unlucky.”

He seemed to have entered fanboy-mode, at the thought of powers. “What’s your power?”

“…It’s a mess.”

“But like, what can you do?”

“This.” I splashed him with gradiated water, which made him scream, right as it evaporated as the magic forming its structure disappeared.

“Don’t do that again!”

I giggled as we passed a corner and found the Garage of the Daydream open. I glanced at the 16-year-old next to me, and he shook his head. I gave him a slight push “Well, you better get going.”

He frowned at me “Aren’t you gonna talk to mom and dad? They’re worried sick about you!”

I froze, why hadn’t I just talked to them? I mean sure it would be a struggle, and now that I had taken down his boss Oni Lee would be after me, not to mention the PRT, so I couldn’t stay with them anymore. Running off in the middle of the night was stupid of me, although in my defense I was in shock and fear at the time.

I shook my head “Yeah, let's keep going.”

Tamir was standing in the garage, and as soon as he spotted his son and some tall lady walking with him, he called out “Inko!”

-<O>\- -<O>-

Daniel Hebert had been pacing in his bedroom, worried about his daughter. It was nearing 1:15. He had been woken up at around 12:10 by the back door of the house being opened and closed. He had rushed down, as well as a tired man could, and checked around the house. He found nothing stolen, but his daughter was missing. He was pretty sure she just snuck out, but part of him couldn’t help but think of the News from the beginning of the week. A young lady running out of her apartment after midnight for no apparent reason, taking a couple personal belongings, kidnapped by a mind-controller who then robbed her bank account.

He wasn’t worried about his bank account, Taylor knew no way of accessing it. What scared him the most was that nobody knew what that “Master”, as the PRT called them, had done to the young lady. He was holding out, hoping his daughter had just snuck out. It was about then that he heard a peculiar sound. A knock on the door. A quick glance out his window showed nobody on the front door, so they must have been in his back yard. Had Taylor forgotten to take her house-keys with her? The knocks came with a bit too much force for a casual thing, but then again she probably thought he was sleeping.

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This was probably a last resort for her, he remembered those looks she gave him whenever he tried to get a better understanding of the bullying, her eyes begging him to not involve himself. He didn’t want to pry, but perhaps he could get a better idea of what was going on. He walked downstairs and entered the kitchen. Barely glancing out of the window he saw a portion of his daughter’s hair and a gray skin-tight outfit. Danny suppressed a shudder, what did those sick fucks make her do?

The last thing he had expected when he opened the door was Assault, the hero, standing next to his daughter, who was holding an insectoid helmet, the skin-tight grey outfit being covered in insectoid-looking plates.

Assault waved “Mr. Hebert? It’d be best we step in for this conversation.”

Danny nodded slowly, and stepped to the side. The pair walked in and sat at the dinner table. He shut the door and followed.

Assault started “Not sure if you can tell now, but your daughter has powers.” Danny nodded, looking at the outfit and helmet Taylor had. “They’re not bad powers, but it’s important to note, and sorry to repeat this Taylor, that she was seriously reckless. She managed to do a serious number on Lung, but had it not been for Velocity & I’s assistance, and that of another cape nearby, it is very possible she would’ve been injured severely if not lethally.”

Danny was dumbfounded. Lung? She had faced off against lung? His heart was beating hard in his ears. Assault was saying something, but he couldn’t hear. Lung. His daughter fought lung and nearly died. He wanted to scream. He then remembered what was happening, and took a deep breath, calming himself down.

“…ert? Mr. Hebert? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, sorry, it’s not every day you hear your daughter faught a dragon and nearly died…”

“That is understandable. Now, I’ve had a conversation with Taylor, and we’ve agreed the Wards would be the best option for her, since she wants to pursue heroism.”

Danny opened his mouth the talk, but assault liften his hands to stop him “I understand your concerns about her safety, but you shouldn’t worry. The PRT prioritizes the safety of their Wards highly, the program’s main function is protection,” Assault smiled “We aren’t going to let her go at Kaiser next.”

Danny snorted, appreciating the levity the hero was trying to add to the situation.

“She wouldn’t patrol too often, and even when she would she’d have teammates with her, and would easily be able to call for backup or escape if a situation goes awry. I should also say that we also invest heavily into power testing and development, so that wards can be strong enough to defend themselves against most threats by the time they graduate.” The hero glanced at the clock “Could I have a paper and a pen?”

Danny nodded, speed-walked to his bedroom, grabbed the requested items, and returned. The hero whispered something and wrote down a number onto the paper “I understand it’s getting late, and you’ll want to talk to your daughter, but if you decide to go ahead with Wards membership, you’ll want this number. Schedule an appointment, and we’ll get it all sorted out.”

Danny nodded “Thanks for that.”

The hero got up and left, giving a “Good night.” Before closing the back door behind himself.

Danny turned back to his daughter. “You have powers?”

She nodded awkwardly.

Danny stepped forward, hesisitated, and gave his daughter a hug, and she began to sob as she hugged him back. He hadn’t hugged her in ages. He supposed after nearly losing her, it was about time he start acting like a father again, make up for the last couple years... He stroked her hair affectionatley as she sobbed into his chest “It’ll be fine… We’ll figure it out… You’re okay…”

He smiled as she finally calmed down. He pulled back and yawned “First thing though, we need to sleep.”

-<O>\- -<O>-

I was considering the implications of this latest perk. It hadn’t actually given me any new knowledge. It’s fire seemed to mix with that of Bonds of Fate, and a brand new principle had come to my mind. Dual-natured beings. It was so unbeleivably complex, but the theory was there. It would allow for shapeshifting creations, as long as they held a soul. They would have two forms that could be of any material or size, and be able to shift between the two.

It was a weird star, because it would simply improve a couple specific other stars, but if they were going to be as useful as dual-natured beings, she could accept this.

I heard Kaito stomp up the stairs, rather upset. Inko shook her head, muttering “what am I going to do with this kid…”

Tamir looked to me “So… I’m gonna guess you had another Monday on Monday?”

I nodded awkwardly at the mention of my last panic attack “Yeah. Had a bad day. I tried to sleep, woke up with my body like this.”

The couple looked at each other, and Tamir continued “We actually thought you had gotten a power on Monday, we wanted to talk to you about it.”

Inko nodded “Tamir and I both got powers after Kyushu. People get powers on the worst day of their lives… and they really aren’t a solution to much, sometimes they make things worse, a constant reminder of that day.”

I thought back to that moment I snapped as my innitial panic attack had ended. Realizing how terrible my life was, if it could even be called that, and how terrible it would continue to be terrible. Honestly, never had I truly lived before tonight.

Inko swallwed and continued, forcing herself to speak “Kyushu put us both in unhealthy mindsets we had previously left. Had we not had one moment of clarity where we realized where our powers were taking us, we would have continued to endanger ourselves and do the same stupid shit we did when we first came here.”

**200CP Banked. Purchase?: Strong Soul (Tensei Shittara Slime Datta Ken) (100CP). Purchased. 100CP Banked.**

I frowned as this new perk changed my soul, making it stronger. More od was pumped into my circuits. It was in a cluster with two small motes.

Tamir nodding caught my attention, drawing me out of my thoughts, and I noticed the tears at the corner of his eyes, growing as what must have been painful memories returned to the man “You never talked much about why you moved to the city, but you need help. That Monday… you kept wailing about how eyes would never leave you alone..” He shook his head then looked me in the eyes, a single tear running down his left cheeck. “Look,” he sighed “…well-adjusted people don’t become capes. Me and Inko were sane, but only by a thread. I’d recommend you use your savings and get a counselor or something. Go back to work, or not, whatever you do, it’s important to face your issues, and your powers are rarely helpful in that.”

I shook my head “My power is the perfect solution to my issues. I can improve my situation, I’m free.”

Inko frowned “Well, your situation got worse, you’re a wanted criminal and you’re homeless again. You aren’t busy anymore, but is that because of your power?”

I smiled “Technically yes! If I never got this power I’d be stuck doing the same shit I did all the time! I can now do anything I want to do!”

Inko frowned deeper “What do you want to do?”

I paused. What did I want to do? I hadn’t really considered that before. Possibilities were still opening before me, so I couldn’t pin myself down yet, that would be silly.

“Not sure yet, I have many doors open, and more are opening every day.”

Inko shook her head “Forget what you CAN do, what do you WANT to do? If all doors were open before you, which would you choose?”

I tried to wrap my head around the idea of actual true freedom, of all doors in life being open to you, but failed miserably. I hypnotized myself to get it, but I still couldn’t choose a door. I reversed the effect and shrugged cluelessly.

Tamir smiled “I get you are probably a bit overwhelmed, but you probably feel this need to do something, right? To push yourself to the limits?”

“Not exactly... I mean I want to do things, but it’s no different than other ambitions.”

His eye twitched “Huh. You’re lucky. Or maybe we’re unlucky? Either way, it’s hard not to use your powers, right?“

“It’s kinda hard I guess.”

Inko glanced at her husband “Let it be.” She then turned to me “We’re not really qualified to dig through all your problems, get a councilor or something once you figure out how to…” she looked me over again “…deal with that.”

“I’m really doing much better.”

“In what way? You’re a homeless wanted criminal!” I froze. “You don’t even know what you want to do!”

“I don’t know what I want to do because I’ve never had time to consider it!”

“Then think before you act and rob a fucking bank!”

“It was my own money!”

“SAY THAT TO THE PRT!”

“I-” I froze again, silent. I walked through the implications of what I had done. I had mastered 5 people. I had placed my agency above others, I had- no. I knew exactly where that line of thinking ended, and I thanked myself for keeping myself calm through self hypnosis. I didn’t need another panic attack right now.

Tamir nodded, seemed to think deeply for a second, then opened his lips. He pursed them, reconsidered, and opened them again. “Ok, since we’ve calmed down, we should probably adress the Elephant in the room. The bank, what the hell was up with that?”

I looked down in shame “It’s as the PRT says. I mastered a couple employees to expedite me getting my money…”

Inko let out a sound that was a mix of a sigh and a groan “…Fucking hell. Look. Best option would be to talk to the PRT and get the mess sorted out, the longer it waits the worse shit will get. What else did you do tonight, besides rescuing Kaito and stopping the ABB capes?”

“I confoamed Velocity in retalition, and I mastered lung to get him to stop.”

Inko shook her head with widened eyes and raised eyebrows, sighing through her nose. “What is your power exactly?”

“I’m like a fantasy witch… I can make projections, make things stronger, master people, and make familiars.”

“Familiars?”

“They’re like… psuedo-biological beings, no soul, connected to my mind, I can see through them and control them”

“You’ve made a couple?”

“I’ve got a couple ‘angels’, gold skin, white feathers, they’re a foot tall and have like, two-foot wing span?”

Inko nodded “Here’s the deal. You want to avoid further incidents that might lead to more charges and higher threat ratings, trust me I speak from experience, although nothing as bad as mastering a local warlord. You’re gonna need to find a way to get the PRT off your back.”

“And how do I manage that?”

Inko shrugged “Molotov and Barbeque just stopped doing anything, and they had no reason to persue us.”

“But they’re pursuing me because they think I kidnapped myself…”

“So your only real option is to surrender and explain things, and hope you don’t get sent behind bars for too long.”

“…I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“My whole life has been a prison… I just broke out… I’m not just gonna let myself walk back into a cell…”

“What else can you do!? You’ve got no other way out!”

A laughing sigh escaped my lips “No, I do. I’ll just have to pull off something riducilous…”

Inko frowned “Something ridiculous… such as..?”

I smiled bittersweetley.

“No. That’s so stupid! That’s a terrible fucking plan and can go wrong so many ways!”

Tamir frowned “What’s so stupid?”

I snorted “Isn’t it clear? A hostage negiotiation.”


	4. Perks Gained in Order.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll keep this at the end of the fic :)

### Chapter 1 - Abscondence

#### The Softer Side (Fate/Legends: Oasis of Fantasy) (100CP)

Not every fortress can be entered with a soft step and some acrobatics. Sometimes you need to take a more visible way in without alerting anyone as to your purpose. Thankfully, your training is far from lacking here either. You are a highly accomplished infiltrator in a more social sense. You can easily disguise yourself as others, make yourself seem to fit in perfectly to almost any kind of social group, make friends with ease and play any game of politics like a master. You were born or trained or both to slide your way into the inner circles of the highest levels of nobility, take what you want and then leave long before anyone realises you were the culprit all along. This comes with a wide array of basic experience in various professions to help you blend into your disguises better, though your new skills are mostly focused on the higher end of society. Helping you along however, is a supernatural connection to a certain kind of animal. Pigeons and doves for example or perhaps house cats or spiders. Your connection to these animals allows you to make use of them as familiars, provided another mage is not already and the animal has no true intellect of it’s own. You can see through their senses, even command them to act as you please, all within a range of around a kilometer from your own position.

#### Noble Menagerie (Fate/Stay Night) (200CP)

A familiar is an ordinary animal or magical creation linked to the creating Magus, often this creature has enhanced physical abilities as well. That Magus is able to command these familiars with absolute obedience, as well as share any of their senses at will. You've come into the possession of particularly high quality familiars made by the Einzbern clan. Whilst all are based on mundane animals in the real world, each one is enhanced to the point of being able to easily tear through whole packs of their mundane brethren and can share their senses with their master even over a hundred kilometres of distance between them. Several options are available in terms of what familiars can be taken. The first, several dozen creatures the size of small birds or mice can be taken. Second are a half dozen to dozen animals ranging from those the size of a dog to lion sized familiars. Finally, one can choose to be given a single very large familiar, such as a draft horse or elephant. This option can be taken multiple times to stack or choose different sorts each time.

#### Master of Puppets (Fate/Legends: Oasis of Fantasy) (200CP)

Everyone is born with talent for something, your talent just happened to be making life. When it comes to magic involved in the creation of familiars, even the summoning of them, you’re miles beyond any of your peers. While you are not the best in the world with just this, your raw skill and power with magic still lacking compared to the greats, you’ll find anything in relation to the creation, alteration and maintenance of magical familiars, summons and living creations comes to you with the ease of breathing. You learn far faster, your products are of a vastly higher quality and come with far more efficiency than what your fellow magicians might create. It is even far more cost efficient for you to make them, as you take just a quarter of what others would expend to create the same things. You have particular talent too in ensuring the loyalty of that you consider a familiar, whether this be designing the minds of creatures you create as easily as you design their bodies or creating lines of spell or rune magic to add to a summoning ritual to ensure much stronger bonds of servitude exist on what you summon. It also happens that you are quite good at creating and overlooking legal contracts, mostly from all the interaction with demons.

#### Magic Circuits (Fate/Stay Night) (0CP)

Magic Circuits are the spiritual circuits within the souls of any Magi, though they also form a nervous system-like physical representation on the body. These not only generate prana, the basic magical unit made through the combination of Mana and Od, but are also what allows any Magus to manipulate their energies to cast magic. They vary greatly in number and quality between individuals. Strenuous use of them can cause pain and numbness, whilst any use at all will heat the physical body up.

You begin with an average amount of circuits, 20 in total, but each circuit is of exceedingly high quality, equal to the Circuits of Tohsaka Rin. They will not naturally grow but artificial means to increase them do exist. You may also purchase extra 30 Magic Circuits for every 100cp you pay extra here.

#### Magic Circuits (Fate/Zero) (0CP)

Magic Circuits are the spiritual-physical circuits that lie within all magic using humans. They allow the generation and manipulation of magical energy for Magi. Magic circuits can vary wildly in both quantity and quality between people, though a person with high quantity and/or quality will usually pass those on to any children they have.

You start with 20 circuit, with each one being exceedingly high in quality, equivalent to the Circuits of Tohsaka Rin. You may also purchase extra 30 Magic Circuits for every 100cp you pay extra here.

#### Magic Circuits (Fate/Kaleid Illya Prisma) (0CP)

Magic Circuits are a pseudo-nervous system that spreads through the body and acts as an organ that converts lifeforce into magical energy. Magic Circuits reside within the soul and what is found in the body is a physical expression of them. The number of Magic circuits one possesses is determined at birth and cannot decrease or increase naturally. You gain twenty magical circuits of top quality and a further twenty each time you purchase this option.

#### Blossoming Sun (Fate/Legends: Land Of the Rising Sun) (0CP)

You had a fortunate birth, whatever you end up being, and find yourself above average for these lands. Japan is not particularly a bastion of mystical heroes in the way of Greece or Britain. Indeed, many of the legends to be found following are made from incredible skill or the command of many soldiers instead of personal feats of might and magic. But even these skillful heroes do tend to stand above the other poppies.

Your body is naturally on the higher end for human fitness, ably competing in modern athletics without any training required. Magically, you possess a number of high quality circuits, equal to the much later coming Tohsaka heir. A prodigy in those times but still notable even a thousand years prior. You lack training for now but magic is not so hidden as it becomes in the modern day, with the presence of spiritual temples and Onmyouji practitioners.

As a quirk of this land, you also have the ability to summon a wide range of aesthetic effects, even when they make no sense. A flurry of cherry blossoms on the wind as you make an entrance, the sun shining down the red rays of a sunset even mid-morning to dramatise your battles. One might claim you’re in some sort of samurai movie, with how many dramatic effects tend to occur around you.

#### Roman Holiday (Fate/Legends: Empires Of Antiquity) (0CP)

The earlier ages had greater potential, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. But even among the people of ancient Greece, you’ve actually stood out more than most. You have the potential to be a hero, should you work long and hard. Your physicality is enough to let you break down a tree with a few steady blows, run several times faster than an Olympian athlete of the day and while your body is far from immune to bladed weapons, you find that the fists of normal folk feel like children on your body. You even have some magical potential of note, being capable of manipulating a decent amount of mana in the Age of Gods fashion should you find someone that can train you to do so or, should you be born later and prefer it, have around a hundred high quality magical circuits to learn to use.

#### A Different Age (Fate/Legends: Garden of Avalon) (0CP)

This isn’t the year 2004 anymore. We’re in an age and a place where mystery is heavy in the air and heroes still spring up like weeds to challenge hordes of creatures out of legends and nightmares both. To be born in this era, especially to be born with the potential to be a hero, means to be something special. You have physical and magical abilities beyond the common man of the modern era. As an adult with no further training, you have a good deal of talent for combat and the physical attributes to kill a modern man in a single blow or outrun an olympian with little effort. You also possess just over a 100 top quality magical circuits, at least by the modern standards. In these times, they’re only high quality. You have no magical training but the potential thrums eagerly within you. And of course, the mystery in the air is seemingly quite good for a growing body, as you’re very likely to grow up to become quite the lovely specimen. You won’t be wowing many people in this country but in the modern day, it’s likely you’d be quite the lusted after creature. Especially since your body, if you want, is naturally inclined towards becoming very curvy. Or hard. Depending on what you prefer.

#### Green Life (Fate/Legends: Land of Shadows) (0CP)

The Age of Gods may be over but humanity is still far from what it becomes in the modern day. As a human in these times, you have abilities quite beyond the ordinary man of the later years. Your body is physically at the peak of human capability, even without training, and your magical potential sees you with around 50 magical circuits of a very high quality. Not quite enough that you’d outmatch most modern magus without effort but enough that you’d be a notable prodigy in those times. Now though? You’re rather ordinary for a warrior or wizard, perhaps a little beyond the average.

#### Hindu Boys (Fate/Legends: Nirvana Yuga) (0CP)

In the Age of Gods, there are few who can be found lacking. Particularly so when it comes to those with heroic destinies. While your actual powers are described above and below, this option details some more miscellaneous attributes. Your magical potential is that of one from the Age of Gods, as if you were born in that era. Whatever level of power you may have already gained above, you have that certain level of mystery that will put you above those in the modern era. The other aspect to life in Ancient India is that you are far from appearing average, whatever your actual abilities may be. This free option lets you not only make yourself noticeably attractive by modern day standards, it allows you to freely redesign your body within the styles of the characters found in this time in Fate. Albino colouration without the conditions? Hair and eyes like fire? Limbs that look like they’re made of the stars in the sky? All quite possible, though all also only cosmetic in nature. Perhaps you’ll have a chance to make some of these qualities have more impact later.

#### An Age of Gods (Fate/Legends: Oasis of Fantasy) (0CP)

The Age of Gods is certainly a time to be alive. Humanity is far from as weak as it will become in the modern era, so you will require a suitable body to these early times. Should you be born later in this world’s life, after the Age of Gods has ended, you will be quite the anomaly. A human with a body from the Age of Gods yet born in the latter ages. You have the physical and mental capabilities that any modern human would believe you are superhuman. You can tear through the stone or metal of the modern day without much exertion, perhaps even lift a tonne of weight over your head, and certainly outrun any horse. You have magical power unlike what appears to those who use magecraft, as you do not have magic circuits. Instead, through your body runs pure magical energy, allowing you to much more easily manipulate your own energy and that of the world around you. Of course, such a thing requires training to utilise to any real effect but once you have that training, there is no modern mage not considered a freakish prodigy that could level with you. As befits a time of myths and heroes, you will be assured to be at least somewhat attractive and it is possible for your body to grow to somewhat inhuman degrees, though whether that manifests as being eight feet tall and bulging with muscles or the sort of beauty normally seen only in the depictions of fertility goddesses in the temples of Babylon...that’s still to be decided.

#### I Come From France (Fate/Legends: Vive la France) (0CP)

These aren’t the years in which the average man had great power. People seem roughly about as normal as in the modern world. But that’s not to say they don’t have potential. Especially when they might turn into a hero, like you. No matter what origin you choose, this perk grants you a healthy and fit body for free, at least enough to perform ably in an ordinary fight or battle. Your looks are decent, at least a cut above the norm, and you have basic magic circuits available to you. While you lack any training in their use, 20 magical circuits of high quality is a capable start.

#### Basic Training (Fate/Zero) (0CP)

All magi, all competent magi at least, know the fundamentals of magecraft. Formalcraft, Reinforcement, Gradation Air and Hypnosis. These basic skills are known by all Magi to some level, though only a few make a serious study of any of them, as opposed to focusing on more complicated, more ‘sophisticated’ disciplines. You are skilled in the use of all four basic disciplines for no cost, the equal of an adult magus who completed their training in each area and was notably skilled. For an extra 100cp, you may increase your skill in one of the four areas to that of a masterful level, well beyond what most magi are capable of.

#### Basic Training (Fate/Stay Night) (0CP)

Everyone has to start somewhere. No matter who you started as in this place, you've got the basic knowledge any magic user has. You know the core arts of Reinforcement, Gradation Air, Hypnosis and Formalcraft at an average level. Reinforcement is the enhancement of the functions of beings or objects through magical energy. You could make yourself as strong and fast as an Olympic athlete or enhance your senses to the best of human ability and so on, or you could increase the sharpness of a sword to cut through steel or the durability of a shield to endure small calibre firearms with ease. Things can only be reinforced so much at a particular skill level before they simply explode from overstuffing. Gradation Air is shaping magical energy into the form of an item, which temporarily becomes real. You could make a sturdy but mundane sword or shield with this, though they would not last more than a few minutes at a time. Hypnosis is the basic form of mind control all Magi learn to use. It can be easily shrugged off by any supernatural being or magic user at this level but manipulating ordinary humans is quite easy and only those with exceptional willpower be able to resist the use of this without magic to back them up. Formalcraft, generally considered magecraft for dummies, is a way for Magi to use the mana in the air, along with sacrifices or ritual preparation, to make casting spells easier or possible at all for those with little personal magical energy. All of these can be improved with time, sometimes to terrifying levels, but it will take effort and time.

For 200cp, any of these disciplines but Formalcraft may be upgraded to a mastery of the subject. A master of Reinforcement would be able to match an agent of the Church with the Holy Sacraments or even surpass them in one area if they focused on one area. A master of Gradation Air could create simple enchanted weapons for temporary periods or complex mundane ones with many moving parts for hours or even more than a day at a time. A master of Hypnosis would find that even experienced Magi struggle to throw off their influence and that mundane humans are almost incapable of the slightest resistance to their mind control. This mastery can be bought once for each option.

#### Tools Of The Trade (Fate/Stay Night) (200CP)

Every wizard needs a wand and a cauldron and you're no different. If you have not picked The Family Art at least once, buying this will simply give you a series of tools to enhance the power of Formalcraft to a good degree. However, purchasing The Family Art will mean this perk can instead grant you specialised tools for that specific magic specialisation. These tools will always take the form of very useful enhancers or ingredients to the specific magic form. Gem craft users will gain a bag filled with high quality gems, all of which respawn a day after they have been destroyed through use. Alchemy users will gain large assortments of alchemical tools, all of the highest quality craftsmanship that will never break. If you have taken The Family Art more than once and also bought this option, further purchases of this option will be discounted to you, with it being reduced to 50cp per buy for Magus Heirs as they gain both discounts at once.

### Chapter 2 – Escelation

#### The Family Art (Fate/Stay Night) (400CP)

The true wealth of every Magus family is their magecraft specialisation. The discipline of magecraft that they have spent generations researching, studying, experimenting on and utilising. It's your inheritance or perhaps, your spoils of war or thievery. However you came to possess the knowledge, you have a few decades of training in a magic specialisation of your choice, enough to make you an expert, if human, user of the art, something along the lines of Rin with her gems, though you are still many years from being a master. Maybe you'll even make a breakthrough that surprises those vaunted masters. A list of canon and suggested non canon specialisations will be at the notes section at the bottom of the jump. This perk can be taken multiple times.

#### Bonds Of Fate (Fate/Stay Night) (600CP)

Finally revealed, the secrets and knowledge to the Einzbern's Homunculi creation methods. It's all yours. From the way to turn natural children into basic Homunculi to creating flawless versions of the super Homunculi such as Ilyasviel herself, you've gained not only the knowledge but also the expertise in medicine, surgery and Alchemy focusing on life creation to actually carry out the process entirely on your own. Beyond mere skill, your creations, when they be living beings, seem to be better than those of any other peer on a fundamental level. Life you bring into being with your magics and sciences, from this world or any other, is stronger, faster, and smarter and so on then it would normally be. You could possibly focus this into one area or spread it out even more generally with some work. Taking The Family Art in Alchemy on top of this would push your Homunculi beyond even what the Einzbern family achieved.

Capstone Boost: Bonds Of Fate has now given you the ability to create dual natured beings. Specifically, these are living beings that can turn into items and vice versa. By crafting an item at the same time as creating a life form, artificial or not, you may combine them and allow that being to transform into the item at will, as well as to retain their aware minds whilst they are in item form. Unlike the case of Leysritt, there is no need to have the living being be of sufficient power to equal the item but you are limited to one being to one item in these fusions.

#### Child Rearing 101 (Fate/Legends: Garden of Avalon) (200CP)

Children are ever so precious, especially when they make such perfect tools to turn against your foes. You have the knowledge of the strange processes used to create homunculi children and, beyond the norm for this kind of magic, you can do so as long as you have even a single sample from the body of your target, such as blood or a strand of hair, instead of needing semen. The homunculi can be carried to term within a artificial womb that has been properly prepared or within a woman, it makes little difference. The child will be a true descendant of the sample it was made from, possessing similar appearance and many of the same abilities and talents as their parent, though they are still beginners. Unlike their parent however, they will rapidly reach adulthood in just a year, quickly mastering their born advantages. So long as you created them, you are also able to effortlessly mould your homunculi into pursuing a purpose of your choice. They may try, through your mistakes or the influence of others, to take their own path in life but they will find that destiny agrees with you and be unnaturally forced towards the goal you decided for them. They can break free but it will be an epic task.

#### Pseudo-Servant (Fate/Stay Night) (200CP)

You are...how did you become a Demi Servant?! The process isn't even invented for another year and that's on an infant! I bet it's those guys messing with time again. Impossibilities like you shouldn't even have a chance of existing. Though, with how unique some of your other abilities are, I guess it might not be so out of mind after all.

Looking past that, I guess we should tell you what this means. A Demi-Servant is a fusion between a Servant and a modified human that allows the human to make use of the powers, skills and Noble Phantasms of a Servant they are bonded with. Normally it'd take some time to learn to use these powers and the fusion would give the user a very limited lifespan but I guess whatever time mess up made you like this let you bypass those flaws in the process. You gain the Servant Origin in addition to your original one, though you do not gain the 100cp freebie, and access to the Servant Supplement as described for those of the Servant Origin, with 1000SP and all associated discounts and freebies. Much like being a Servant, you may only gain the Supplement related benefits of this perk once, though it does not prevent you taking its alternative version below at a later jump to gain the capstone booster effects.

On the other hand, perhaps you were a Servant originally, instead of a 'mere' human. Have no fear, a path is also open to you, one less contrived then the existence of Demi-Servants in this year. A Pseudo Servant is much the same as a Demi Servant, a Servant is summoned into a human vessel. Here, however, the Servant is not the one giving their abilities to the human but is instead fully in control of their new vessel. The vessel you were summoned into was blank and ready for your possession, providing no resistance. In effect, you gain 1000CP with which to buy an origin (Or take a free origin for free), perks and items, though none of this extra CP can be converted into SP. You will still be summoned as a Servant by whatever Master you chose, they will simply be the ones to prepare or come into possession of your current vessel in some manner. Like above, you may only get this benefit once, no matter how many times you take the Pseudo Servant option, though you can still take the Demi Servant option in a later jump to gain the capstone booster effects. An important note, is that Pseudo Servants effectively count as having living bodies, for the purposes of Magical Energy regeneration and any other effect that might care.

Whichever option you have taken, the changed nature, be it Servant or Human, has magnified the powers of certain perks you could take. Any 600cp perk will gain an upgraded form for you if you take them and this perk at once, as described in the Notes section at the bottom of this jump. Taking either of the above options does not lock you out of getting a Servant or Master if you normally would, these are entirely separate from such a thing.

You may also purchase this option for 200CP instead, only gaining the effects of the Capstone Booster portion and losing out on everything else, including all Servant/Master benefits and any additional points.

#### Strong Soul (Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken) (100CP)

You have a very strong and powerful soul unlike most monsters whose souls contain much less energy naturally. You may be seen as a valuable snack to demons who can utilize such energies. A stronger soul helps in getting stronger skills.


End file.
